Ofsted boss Sir Michael Wilshaw has attacked schools over their record on providing careers guidance saying “too few are doing enough”.

He hit out today with publication of the education watchdog’s much-awaited report — Going in the right direction? Careers guidance in schools from September 2012 .

It gives a damning commentary on careers guidance in schools and comes a year after they were made responsible for delivering the service.

The report shows that 75 per cent of the schools visited were not implementing their duty to provide impartial careers advice effectively.

“Many students in the schools with weaker provision had had little information or guidance about how to start taking responsibility for the careers that lay ahead of them,” it says.

“Inspectors found that about three quarters of the schools visited had not identified a comprehensive strategy or purpose for careers guidance.

“A strategic overview and coordination were lacking; provision often comprised activities that had been in place for some time and had not been evaluated or reviewed.”

It also says the National Careers Service was not promoted well enough and there was a lack of employer engagement in schools.

Sir Michael said: “It is vitally important that young people have access to information on the full range of career pathways available so they can make informed choices about their next steps.

“Our findings show that too few schools are doing enough to ensure all their students receive comprehensive advice about the breadth of career opportunities available to them.

“It is worrying that the new arrangements are failing to provide good guidance or to promote vocational training options and apprenticeships.”

The report, which comes a day after Sir Michael praised schools for “genuine and radical advances” on inspections, examines careers advice in schools since September 2012 — when they were given the legal responsibility for service for 14 to 16-year-olds.

It was commissioned by the Department for Education and looks at the extent to which young people in the age range were getting impartial careers advice.

Few of the 60 schools visited for the survey had bought in adequate service from external sources, it says in the report.

It further criticises schools for not working well enough with employers to provide students with direct experience of the world of work.

Vocational training and apprenticeships were rarely promoted effectively, especially in schools with sixth forms, the report says.

Instead, the A-level route remained the ‘gold-standard’ for young people, their parents and teachers.

Few schools were promoting the National Careers Service, the body responsible for providing independent and impartial careers advice to young people from the age of 13.

Its telephone service and website were also rarely promoted and therefore significantly underused.

Nearly all of the students interviewed who were aware of the website told inspectors that it offered nothing different from other similar sites and the large majority felt it was mostly aimed towards older students and adults.

The report goes on to make a number of recommendations to the government, schools, local authorities, National Careers Service as well as for Ofsted itself.

“Given the high levels of youth unemployment, even among graduates, it is important the government, schools, local authorities and other agencies all work to improve the quality of careers advice in schools,” said Sir Michael.

The report calls on the government to provide more explicit guidance to schools on careers advice and to monitor students’ progress and achievement when they leave school through accurate collection of destination data.

The National Careers Service is also told to market its services more effectively to all young people aged 13 to 18 and do more to disseminate information on national skills shortages so that young people gain a greater understanding of where there are likely to be greater employment opportunities.

Ofsted also recommends that its own inspectors take greater account of careers guidance and students’ destinations when conducting future school inspections.

Schools were visited for the report over the course of five months from December.

For government and FE sector reaction to the Ofsted report into careers guidance see our next edition 

Your thoughts

Leave a Reply to Stuart McCord Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

9 Comments

  1. Janice Bray

    This report delivers no surprises, sadly. Urgent action is required from a range of partners, especially the DFE who have been quick to criticise but hugely inactive. I hope this report together with those by CBI, Barnardos, Princes Trust etc etc persuades Mr Gove that action is required. It would be too much to hope that he will admit that he got it wrong from the start.

    • Heidi Agbenyo, Senior Manager, Stakeholder Communications, City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development

      In 2011, the City & Guilds Centre for Skills Development surveyed more than 1,000 young people and their parents across the UK to investigate their views on vocational education and the role of information advice and guidance.

      We found:
      – that more young people should be made aware of the benefits of vocational qualifications to ensure there is little room for misconceptions and misunderstandings.

      – there needs to be more balanced provision of guidance in school. Teachers and careers advisors need to take time to discuss other educational routes, not only options that will help students that want to go in to higher education.

      – that parents were low in confidence when it came to advising young people about vocational options, highlighting the important role that
      school teachers, college tutors and trained advisers have to play in helping young people to understand the full range of options available.

      Lastly, the parents and young people we spoke to called for more contact with employers, through work placements and taster sessions, to enable them to be better prepared for the realities of work.

  2. Well, what a surprise this is not. It was clearly the wrong thing to do in the first place, to give responsibility for this guidance to organisations with a vested interest in the outcome. As I recall, that statement about it being the wrong thing to do was vociferous from the sector at the time. So then to see that comprehensive advice on all career paths is not forthcoming is no surprise. Our organisation’s experience, as a GTA whose primary role is as an Apprenticeship provider – one of the alternative paths – would chime well with the report. There are enlightened schools, but the majority are not. We see young people every day who have little or no understanding of the options facing them.
    What I find so sad it that it is all so predictable and yet the game must be played out at the expense of the students over a protracted time-frame. For goodness sake, let’s put something in place that is genuinely impartial and only committed to do what is best for the student.

  3. Gill Ditch

    Quel surprise ? It is very hard for schools to give up to date, relevant careers advice unless they are engaging effectively with employers. Teachers are focussed on their own subject areas and many do not have the knowledge or expertise to give impartial advice. I used to work for one of the education business partnerships that was cut by the local authority due to the government cutting funding. Schools now have to pay for outside providers which they are finding hard to do.We did a huge amount of employer engagement & we also worked hard to widen school’s knowledge of apprenticeships. Young people need face to face advice – the National Careers website is not really adequate for young people plus to be honest many young people I have worked with find it too long winded. I personally have tried to use it in sessions – not very inspiring. We worked with our local RPA team who produced a local website using video clips of local employers responding to young peoples questions. You cannot blame the schools for this – they needs funds to employ staff who can make links and organise events. Telling businesses to link with schools without having people to support the process will not work.

  4. The government has taken positive steps towards making vocational education and apprenticeships a gold standard option for school leavers but it will have been in vain if they aren’t made aware of these alternatives. In the current climate, it’s more important than ever for school leavers to be equipped with employment skills needed for the world of work so that they can get on the career ladder from an early age. A greater connection between schools and employers is the answer. By listening to the voice of businesses we will not only get young people working, we will have the opportunity to develop the skills so vital to support growth in our economy.

  5. Wendy Hibbs

    Simply providing links between employers and schools-and even staff to facilitate this-would be great but it is not enough. Without guidance to help students make sense of the information and question it from their own point of view that information might not always be helpful. Govt response to the Ofsted report focuses on information and perhaps advice, but plays scant regard to guidance.

  6. Peter Cobrin

    Let no one doubt on whose watch this has happened. Since July 2010 the DfE and their friends at DBIS have systematically dismantled a system that was admittedly flawed — but NOT broken!! In its place they have done nothing, and as the Education Select Committee have stated (and as I have written in these pages)have effectively failed thousands of young people.

    I challenge Matthew Hancock, assuming he isn’t shuffled somewhere else, to debate in a public forum on where the blame lays.

  7. T. Falconer

    I’m so sick of hearing all the negative views on provision of careers advice and guidance in schools. I am employed as a full time Careers Co-ordinator at a comprehensive school in Exeter – I’m the only one of my kind out of all the secondary school in the City who is full time. Most Careers Co-ordinators are also teaching staff with almost full teaching timetables and are therefore not able to give it the time and importance it deserves. Here at my school, not only do we provide a full programme for Year 7 through to Year 11 – each year group getting a timetabled hour times 6 consecutive weeks of careers education and guidance through the CPSHEE programme. I have a team of staff who chose the ‘careers’ part of CPSHEE and so are very familiar with resources and progression routes. In addition to this I run a Careers Club every week and our guest speakers come from all sectors – from blacksmiths to zoo keepers. This is very informal and students from all years are welcome to attend. I have set up links with major employers who support out work experience programme and come to careers club. I ensure that all the Post 16 providers, educational and apprenticeships, are represented and speak to the whole year group. Because of the changes to the Education Act my status has risen and I finally feel more valued.
    Because of the cuts made to the Connexions service ‘I’ now do the job of 2 PAs plus my own responsibilities and it is very difficult – I feel as if I’m drowning. But guess what? I was doing all this before the changes!! I agree that the Education Select Committee are failing thousands of young people.