The 50-hour work experience policy: Ambition versus reality

The government’s vision for a Youth Guarantee, outlined in its Get Britain Working white paper, includes an ambitious entitlement to two weeks’ work experience (50 hours) for all school and college students in England as part of its provisions to boost young people’s employability.

One assumption is that work experience will start earlier – perhaps in year seven, rather than the traditional year ten or twelve week-long block – therefore the expectation is that most of the new work experience activity would be carried out by schools rather than colleges.

But what remains less clear to us at EDT is how the policy will be applied for a young person moving from school to college. As the concept does seem to apply across a young person’s educational journey, colleges need to be aware of it. A system where a young person’s entitlement moves with them would be too hard to monitor understand, but colleges should be attempting to build on the work done in schools.

More capacity means increased workload for schools and colleges

Youth Employment UK’s Youth Voice Census found that only 36 per cent of secondary school pupils currently have access to work experience opportunities, and only 38 per cent of those undertook work experience in a job they were interested in. Our analysis suggests that to achieve the 50-hour objective, schools and colleges would need to at least double the amount of work experience they currently offer. This would significantly increase their workload.

Alongside this, the current level of employer participation would also need to be doubled. How could this be achieved? And how could we avoid this becoming a siloed initiative that adds to employer confusion? The government’s goals are indeed challenging, so educators and employers need to be not just supported but incentivised too.

A role for careers hubs?

For such a policy to work as a universal entitlement, schools and colleges would need to be robustly measured on how well they meet their 50-hour target. A mechanism for this could be the Gatsby Benchmark goal concerning good career guidance in schools. Schools and colleges currently self-assess their status against each Gatsby benchmark (using the Compass tool) – but perhaps measurement of this new entitlement should be undertaken externally. Careers hubs (like the one we operate in West London on behalf of the Careers and Enterprise Company and the Greater London Authority) would be ideal for this. They support young people with the guidance, skills and work experience they need to make informed career choices, coordinating the engagement of employers and apprenticeships providers across a local area to avoid duplication and ensure alignment. They also have robust relationships with schools and colleges. Careers hubs could quality assure and broker opportunities (ensuring collaboration between institutions) and locally coordinate the opportunities available nationally.

Good practice exists but funding is needed

There is evidence of good practice for many, if not all, the proposed solutions to ramp up work experience. In particular, the feedback we receive suggests that the most impactful work experience provision incorporates pre-placement preparation and post-placement reflection with students. Only additional funding can ensure this happens at scale. The creation of a national level database or service, to manage universally available work experience opportunities, could be one way of using any new funding – although effective local coordination would still be necessary.

Funding needs to reflect where the needs are: For employers, this would mean focusing on building capacity within the SMEs that comprise 99 per cent of the nation’s employers; for schools and colleges, funding would be required to provide additional support to students with greater needs, such as enhancing work experience activities to support students at risk of being NEET (not in education, employment or training).

Perhaps a kitemark for employers who have effectively engaged with work experience programmes would encourage take-up? If every procuring local authority prioritised the take-up of work experience in their lists of social value options that bidding organisations have to choose from, how much would that move the dial? Perhaps some standardisation of the more universal work experience processes could save local duplication of effort – for example, a standard proforma for risk assessments.

However, the two weeks is currently not yet a mandatory requirement but a policy aspiration; how it might work is not yet detailed. As well as questions about funding, responsibilities and capacity there are questions around what types of activity or duration will have most impact, The CEC’s Equalex model, currently being piloted in some areas, seeks not to have a single two-week block, but a progressive build-up of work experience across a young person’s education, to move from exploration to in-depth experience.

We all must work together to consider and test new approaches and ideas, as the overwhelming benefits of work experience are worth the challenge.