The Education Select Committee looked at the issue of careers guidance and produced a report that questioned the impartiality of schools now tasked with providing the service. Graham Hoyle OBE puts forward his suggestions to remedy the problem.

Lord Baker of the Baker-Dearing Trust has proposed that at age 14, pupils should make a choice to go down one of four educational pathways for the next four years of their lives.

Even if his ideas are too radical for a government to follow, the fact is that the educational landscape is already increasingly complex at 14 with the arrival of Lord Baker’s own UTCs, free schools and studio schools.

It is not surprising therefore that the Education Select Committee argues that schoolchildren should start receiving advice on their options, including careers guidance, earlier than in Year 11, the GCSE exams year.

The committee has produced a powerful report with its conclusions strengthened by the views of young people themselves who took part in the inquiry.

These views have rather disappointingly been relegated to the report’s annexes and I would urge anyone to read these first before they start to read the main text.

The young people’s comments echo what our members hear from their apprentices and trainees on the frontline every day.

The young people talk about the value of work-related learning which the coalition government has decided is no longer a statutory obligation for schools and we are in strong agreement with the committee that the obligation should be restored through the statutory guidance.

The report rightly highlights the dangers of the lack of access to impartial advice for pupils, particularly with regard to guidance about apprenticeships and other vocational options.

The MPs are especially concerned about schools with sixth forms, which have a vested interest in encouraging as many as possible of their students to stay on to do A-levels when some of those students would benefit much more from pursuing alternative options.

The Raising the Participation Age initiative, accompanied by the proposed new traineeships, will offer a range of choices at 16 that should hopefully reduce the number of young people not in education, employment, or training (NEETs) and cut the number of course drop-outs where the UK has traditionally fared badly, particularly in respect of 17-year-olds.

But it will only be effective if young people are receiving sound advice on their choices and as the committee MPs say, this should include impartial and face-to-face guidance.

One teacher from every secondary school should become the apprenticeship champion for their school”

We propsed to DfE several years ago that its training provider members should be allowed to go into schools on teacher training Inset days and give a presentation to teachers on apprenticeships.

The presentation would cover a generic description of the apprenticeship system and benefits and be delivered where possible by a combination of apprentices who have previously attended that school, their current employers and the organising training provider.

It would also signpost the school, and its pupils, to the full range of apprenticeship opportunities in the area.

We also believe that at least one teacher from every secondary school should undertake work experience with an apprenticeship provider and become the apprenticeship champion for their school.

As early advocates of the strengthening of Ofsted’s role in checking on the quality of the advice being offered in schools, we are greatly concerned by the committee’s identification of a disconnect between Ofsted’s understanding of its new responsibilities and the minister’s view on what inspectors should be doing.

The recommendation that schools should be required to publish an annual careers plan which shows evidence of impartial advice being made available would appear to be a good way of starting to tackle the issue.

We support a widening of the National Careers Service’s remit to cover young people as well as adults, which would put it on the same footing as services in Scotland and Wales.

We also back the committee’s recommendation that the National Apprenticeship Service should be given access to all schools without waiting to be invited.

Graham Hoyle OBE, chief executive of the Association of Employment and Learning Providers

Traineeships were put firmly on the FE agenda by sector minister Matthew Hancock this month when he revealed plans for a new pre-apprenticeship scheme. Chris Jones takes up the issue and explains what he thinks needs to be considered when the final traineeship model is drawn up.

Further education Minister Matthew Hancock’s recent announcement about the consultation paper on traineeships has been broadly welcomed by the industry, including us at City & Guilds.

As Mr Hancock points out, this discussion presents an opportunity for the government to learn from the success of existing traineeships and to put into practice the advice of training providers and employers alike.

City & Guilds already has a large portfolio of qualifications that prepares young people for the world of work. These have demonstrated there is a clear demand for young people to have access to some form of consistent pre-training for employment or apprenticeships.

Obviously, we are waiting for more information and looking forward to working with government to develop traineeships, and so much is still to be decided.

However, from our experience, we believe traineeships should consider the following points.

Firstly, young people need practical maths and English and employability skills.

One of the most important components of the proposed traineeship model is its focus on English, maths and employability skills. We regularly hear from employers that the combination of functional literacy and numeracy and generic employability skills is too often lacking in the candidates they see.

Young people are faced with continually shifting challenges within the labour market. They are required to demonstrate ever more flexible skill-sets and competencies.

With this in mind, it’s essential that training in employability and basic literacy and numeracy keeps up with these changes. This would support young people to enter the workplace with both the confidence and the core attributes that employers need.

Secondly, employers need to be involved and engaged in traineeships. One of the strengths of the pre-apprenticeship offering we have been developing has been our engagement with employers and recognition of the critical role they play in making the programmes a success.

Their involvement helps to ensure that people develop the necessary skills before starting an apprenticeship.

We also know, through our recent Ways into Work report, that young people are eager to learn more about the world of work at a young age, 88 per cent of 16 to 18-year-olds said that a visit to an employer would be extremely useful to them, and yet just 26 per cent had been given this opportunity.

The traineeship proposals also include work experience as a crucial part of the programme. We believe that nationally-recognised work experience is a fundamental transition for young people into the world of work, providing young people with tangible experience to include on their CVs. It is great to see it being given the attention it deserves.

And finally, traineeships must be accredited and transferrable. To help trainees progress through education and into employment, traineeships need to include a nationally-recognised qualification and standardised course elements — for example, job-related skills at levels one and two.

This would not only give the trainees a real sense of what it may be like to participate in an apprenticeship or other work-based programme, it would also ensure they develop the skills employers need and that these skills are transferable within the same sector. Ultimately, this would place trainees in a better position as they embark on their careers.

Alongside this, traineeships need to be flexible and adaptable in order to suit the needs of individual employers and trainees. However, as with all the programmes we deliver, we believe that the focus must also be on quality, structure and a tangible end result.

The traineeship scheme must be seen as a quality investment, and that’s why we will be working with the government to explore ways to develop an approval rating for colleges and training providers delivering them. The government’s commitment to establishing high quality traineeships and work placements is certainly a very encouraging step that could benefit young people and employers alike.

Chris Jones, chief executive and director
general at City & Guilds