Clegg: ‘guidance will set out what good careers advice should look like’
Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has promised to end the “barely concealed snobbery in this country” that exists towards vocational education by issuing new advice for schools.
Clegg said the guidance will set out what good careers advice should look like, as well as new policies that will enable young people to access employment advice services at an earlier age.
Speaking at South London’s Southfields Academy, he said only one in five schools were giving their students the right information about the best types of careers available to them. To address this, he announced plans to encourage more schools to get involved with a wider range of companies in their local area.
Clegg said: “If students want to become a lawyer, a chef, a plumber, accountant or IT engineer, what's better than sitting down and talking to someone who actually does that job, or even visiting the place where they work to see what it's like?”
The government has also announced further plans to encourage a representative from local employers to sit on school governing bodies, and a proposal that schools publish better details about their students’ destinations after they turn 16.
But central to the Deputy Prime Minister’s plans was a commitment to establish a UCAS style points and online research system that 16-year-olds can access to find training and work opportunities. Through it young people will be able apply for apprenticeships and other training in the same way A Level students are currently able to apply for courses at university. Clegg also promised that government would give 16-17 year olds access to Jobcentre Plus for the first time.
Finally, he said 16-year-olds would now get the “equal shot” they need when making choices about their future. He said: “For a lot of young people I meet, careers guidance currently feels like a tick-box exercise squeezed into lunchtime break with a busy teacher who no doubt already has a lot on their plate.”
Reaction to the announcements has broadly been positive. Anne Spackman, executive director at Career Academies UK, said: “Young people are increasingly interested in routes to the workplace other than university. We welcome any initiative that gets more information out directly to young people.” She added: “A great advantage of UCAS is its dominant position. It is good to see an equivalent for the world of vocational learning.”
However Steve Besley, head of policy at the Pearson Think Tank said the announcements were not new: “It was in May 2011 the government launched the first of its major strategies aimed at tackling youth unemployment which was followed up a year later with the Youth Contract and the Apprenticeship Grant for Employers.
“Many people would have liked to have seen a published version of the Heywood Review [set up in September last year to review youth unemployment] from which these proposals appear to have emanated but for the moment we are left with the Clegg announcements.”