The government has been urged to “bite the bullet” and call Ofsted in to inspect careers guidance services after concerns over the quality and objectivity of advice given to young people.

Association of Colleges policy director Joy Mercer said the watchdog should look at careers guidance during school inspections following a report on the subject by the Education Select Committee.

It identified a “deterioration” in advice since the service became the responsibility of schools in September.

Committee chair Graham Stuart MP questioned the advice of schools who, he said, “put their own interests ahead of that of their pupils, restrict access to other education providers and make the filling of their sixth form places more of a priority than their statutory duty to provide independent and impartial advice and guidance for pupils.”

And the dim view on careers guidance was mirrored by Ms Mercer.

“The Departments for Education and Business, Innovation and Skills need to bite the bullet and encourage the regulator to include careers guidance in its regular inspection of schools,” she said.

“The committee has recognised that careers advice must be delivered by qualified staff and schools should hold the matrix standard. This would mirror colleges’ service to their students.”

City & Guilds chief executive Chris Jones said the committee’s report painted a “shameful picture of how the system is failing young people.”

He added: “Receiving ill-informed, inappropriate career guidance can have an extensive impact on young peoples’ lives, and in turn hinder business and the wider economy.

“What we now need are careers counsellors that are given appropriate training to a recognised standard.

“In addition, colleges and training providers must be better linked with local employers and local enterprise partnerships, to ensure young people have access to high quality work experience.”

Lynne Sedgmore, executive director of the 157 Group, said: “The committee’s conclusions about the state of guidance in schools are worrying.”

However, a Department for Education (DfE) spokesperson said it was too early to judge how careers guidance was delivered with the new system having “only been in place for a term”.

The committee looked at how careers guidance was affected by the Education Act 2011, which saw provision of the service shift from the duty of local authorities and delivered by Connexions, itself described by the DfE as “often costly, patchy and of poor quality.”

The committee heard from a number of education sector big-hitters, including Dr Deirdre Hughes, chair of the National Careers Council, who said there was a potential loss of £28bn to the UK economy if young people were not given the right career guidance.

“We have concerns about the consistency, quality, independence and impartiality of careers guidance now being offered to young people,” said the committee report, which said the transfer of responsibility for careers guidance to schools was “regrettable”.

Committee chair Mr Stuart called for the National Careers Service (NCS), which he described as “a great innovation for adults,” to be extended to support schools.

He said: “We found that the quality and quantity of guidance for young people is deteriorating.”

He also called for schools to produce annual careers plans to “ensure they can be held accountable for what they do”.

A DfE spokesperson said: “We introduced this new duty [on schools to provide careers guidance] to replace the previous system that was often costly, patchy and of poor quality.

“The duty requires schools to secure independent and impartial careers guidance for their pupils.

“We want head teachers to decide what careers guidance is right for their students and have control over their budgets to provide it. The duty has only been in place for a term — far too early to pass judgment on
its success.”

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Editorial : Advice for colleges

Expecting schools to offer impartial careers advice is unfair and unrealistic.

Sixth forms are part of an increasingly competitive market, in which every 16 to 18-year-old learner represents three to five thousand pounds.

If you were running a business would you promote the competition?

Would government investment in face-to-face professional careers advisers solve this problem?

Perhaps, but schools would still have budgets to protect, and where would this army of advisers come from?

Then there’s the thorny issue of paying for them – what services would have to miss out?

I’m told learners are increasingly savvy consumers, often making decisions heavily influenced by social networks both off and online.

Therefore, in this competitive market, FE providers need to quit feeling hard done by and promote their unique selling points better.

A good place to start would be promoting their success at getting learners into work with training.

Every FE provider website should have easy access to progression and destination data, which is also shouted about in the course prospectus and,
for example, the back of buses.

Expecting schools to refer learners is wishful thinking, you’ll need to
earn them.

The latest stage in the development of the proposed FE Guild is “going to be difficult” to complete in such a short pace of time, according to the independent chair of the guild’s steering group.

A formal consultation has begun, and will run until Friday, February 22,  leaving providers who want to contribute just three weeks to respond.

David Hughes, chief executive of the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education, who chairs the steering group told FE Week: “I don’t underestimate that it’s going to be difficult and the time we’ve had to pull together the consultation document has also been really short. It would have been lovely to have another week, 10 days longer, but we haven’t got that time.

 a six-week consultation might have been better than three or four.”

“Right or wrong, the decision by government to announce the end of funding for the Learning and Skills Improvement Service has pushed the timetable very tight.”

He added: “I don’t think a 12-week consultation would have necessarily been better, but a six-week consultation might have been better than three or four.”

Following the informal consultation, which ran online and through consultation events between November and January, Mr Hughes said he was hopeful of a strong response from the sector.

“I suspect it will take up two to three hours of somebody’s time but I think it’s an important issue so I think a lot of people will take that time and make that effort,” he said.

“I was surprised we got more than 400 responses to the small online consultation – I didn’t expect to get many as it was around Christmas time, nobody really knew what the guild was, and there wasn’t really a proposition for people to respond to.”

Many respondents to the initial consultation raised questions about what the remit of the guild would be, and 42 per cent admitted they were unsure until they knew more.

Mr Hughes said he hoped the consultation document would provide clarification, but the guild would be shaped by the consultation and beyond.

He said: “The consultation isn’t the end of it, it’s to establish what needs to go into the implementation plan, and part of that has to be saying ‘how do we carry on engaging with people and properly understanding what people want through the life of the guild?’

“If the guild gets established it will want to carry on refreshing its understanding and meeting the needs of the sector so we think the consultation is really a chance for hundreds of people to come and give their views.”

He added: “When I started out just two and half months ago I wasn’t convinced it was necessarily the right thing, but now I’m more and more convinced we need something and that there’s a gap which needs to be filled, and I’m more and more convinced there’s a will to make it work among people who have engaged so far.”

And with just three weeks for the consultation, Mr Hughes called for input. He said: “I hope we get people being realistic about engaging with the document, trying to understand what we’re suggesting and being constructive with their feedback.”

Visit www.feguild.info for more details.

A host of UK colleges are hoping a new initiative in India will allow them to capitalise on their FE expertise. A number of senior management members made the journey east for its launch and were joined by FE Week editor Nick Linford and reporter, Shane Mann.

On first hearing that 30 FE colleges were to have a permanent presence in India I was intrigued. I asked myself, is there not enough of a challenge educating learners and supporting employers during tough economic conditions in the UK? Why use precious resources chasing contracts in unfamiliar countries, where many have tried and failed before?

And was Sir Michael Wilshaw, the chief inspector for Ofsted, right to ask in his first speech to FE colleges, if international work is a distraction from the urgent need to raise the standards of teaching and learning for our own learners?

My next question was whether it was worth the time and financial cost of flying to India with FE Week colleague Shane Mann to find out. That was easy to answer — yes.

AoC [Association of Colleges] India is an important development in FE. It is a story we couldn’t possibly do justice to from our office in London.

For this reason, we have produced a supplement, in partnership with NOCN, on the development. It starts by introducing you to the colleges taking part (31 at the time of going to print), each one investing £20k for a two-year membership to AoC in India.

We then introduce you to Sannam S4, the consultants with the contract from AoC India to be the eyes, ears and representatives on the ground.

Next up comes interviews with the chair of the group, Asha Khemka OBE, and project director John Mountford.

Further education Minister Matthew Hancock was also visiting India seeking opportunities, learning about India’s plans to train half a billion people by 2022 and, as a Parliamentary cricket team member, quite reasonably taking a spectator seat for the one-day international between England and India in Changralat.

We were granted an exclusive interview with the minister en route the official launch party for AoC India, held at the UK High Commissioner’s residence in New Delhi.

As reported in the last edition of FE Week, AoC in India is by no means the first nor the only FE college venture into the Indian education market.

What struck me was that by clubbing together the colleges have chosen a relatively low risk form of investment. The use of an Indian market entry specialist firm makes a lot of sense. Sannam S4 is well-placed from New Delhi to quickly spot a good opportunity from an unrealistic or poor one. They have also already made impressive headway in arranging meetings with the relevant Indian agencies.

The challenge now will be not just to convert ambition into returns on investment, but also dealing with the tricky operational and strategic issues, presumably familiar to all new partnerships made up of competing businesses.

I also attended the official opening of New College Nottingham’s International Lifestyles Academy, to which its East Midland parent college is contributing curriculum design and quality assurance.

Finally, as for my most unexpected experience in India? That was being invited to stay for dinner after the AoC in India launch and being told by the ambassador’s wife that the apples in the crumble were a gift from the King of Butan.