Examination of Witnesses (Questions 480
- 499)
MONDAY 15 MARCH 2004
MS DEIRDRE
HUGHES AND
MS CATHY
BEREZNICKI
Q480 Chairman: Would that be because
people look at the sort of quality of advice that so-called professional
families give their children. They are probably very well networked,
there is probably an uncle or aunt or family connection. Of course
a lot of research shows that many posts—a high percentage
of posts—are filled not by open entry but by a connection—a
different sort of connection.
Ms Bereznicki: I think economists
suggests that only a third of vacancies ever appear in the public
domain, so the preparation of labour market information has to
be dealt with quite sensitively in order to look at all the sort
of data that is around there.
Q481 Chairman: So it would be sensible
to concentrate on those people who have not got those sort of
connections, would it?
Ms Bereznicki: On those who?
Q482 Chairman: Have not got those
sorts of connections.
Ms Bereznicki: Yes, indeed. You
just asked me—sorry, I have lost my place there.
Ms Hughes: May I respond to the
question on careers guidance. I think you are absolutely right,
it is patchy. I think Cathy's point is, in a sense we are in a
changing climate, whereby we have increasing recognition of the
knowledge-based economy. I think you are alluding to one aspect
of a knowledge-based economy. I think we have to recognise that
times have changed and jobs that are associated with career ladders
are actually more temporary and elusive than ever. Much of the
research including that undertaken by myself and colleagues from
within the centre and indeed further afield, summarise career
guidance as something that most people seek ie certain fundamentals.
You and I seek security of some form, self-fulfilment and a sense
of community, ie a sense of value from our working lives, whether
that is paid work or non-paid work. The concept of a boundaryless
career is one which I think is increasingly being recognised,
where young people and adults who no longer can rely on more traditional
approaches to careers that perhaps we and members of the Committee
may have been used to in the past. Really what I would like to
bring to the Committee are three specific points, and I would
like to share with you an example of the concept of careers. I
hope I can leave you with three key points to help all of you
understand and articulate what careers specialists try to achieve.
The three points I would wish to bring to the Committee are, firstly,
the positioning of the Connexions service as a universal service,
and where careers fits within this arrangement. The second point
I would like to make is the issue around professional expertise
and identity in terms of those responsible for delivering careers
education and guidance. The third point I would like to bring—and
I hope we will have an opportunity to explore—are the consequences
perhaps of having an over-reliance on a solely school-based or
a college-based system. If I may, Chair, to really talk about
careers guidance and what it is, academics have explored this,
and indeed there are many definitions—
Q483 Chairman: We are having trouble
hearing. Can you speak up a little bit. Your microphone is playing
up.
Ms Hughes: Okay, I shall shout.
I am not averse to that. We have been working with, the school
of management at Suffolk University in Boston, where they have
looked at the idea of what makes an intelligent organisation.
This builds on the work of a leading academic, Professor James
Brian Quinn, from Harvard University, who researched what makes
an intelligent organisation. His work was further extended to
focus on career and what this means for all individuals, not just
young people but adults as well. Arthur et al argue that
what we need to do is equip individuals with new ways of "knowing",
and there are three ways of knowing. One is knowing why—a
sense of motivations, values and attitude, the second is knowing
how, and that is the skills and the resources that each of us
may bring to the table in terms of our aspirations and our ability;
and the third one is actually knowing whom ie who can best offer
support and help make things happen—which, Chair, picks
up on your point about networks. What we have done traditionally
in careers work in the past is we have focused very much on an
over-simplistic view, I think, of rational decision making: you
just have to think about yourself and you just have to think about
opportunity, and somehow you lock the two together. All of the
research shows it is a much more complicated process, and I am
sure, reflecting on your own experience, you may lift your head
at that point. The critical thing really is that what we are looking
at is trying to support individuals, both young people, adults
and employers, to be much clearer about their goals. Careers guidance
or career management, whichever you prefer to call it, is linked
to three ways of knowing. The knowing why and the knowing how
may be something that comes quite easily to you; but the knowing
whom networks are that much less expansive for some young people
than indeed for others—so your question, Chair, about should
we be saying "Let's target those who perhaps would be less
fortunate because their networks really are not there". There
is an argument that says that we actually need to be educating
all young people about their networks and how they can develop
those networks for themselves to help maximise their own resources
and the opportunities that are available to them. So I am not
sure that I would advocate "Well, just because a child has
two parents and they are of a certain income, it may mean that
they are less needy". In fact some might argue that some
young people in that bracket are more needy and have less support.
Chairman: That starts us off very well.
Kerry Pollard?
Mr Pollard: Thank you, Chairman. This
is my first time opening the batting, so it is an immensely proud
moment for me—after three years, I think it is, on this
Committee. You talked about the theory of all this. The practice
is much different, and we need to bridge that gap. Can I give
you just two examples. My own case, I have had three major changes
of career. I started as a chemical engineer, had eight different
jobs all over the country in that time; became a director of a
housing association, and now I am a Member of Parliament. Absolutely
totally different, not one minute's careers advice through the
whole process; I am on my own. This time, there is a rate of change
going on in the country now that is almost exponential. Mine spans
40-odd years. I think that would be telescoped into probably 10
or 12 years for some people. Are we ready for that? Is the country
ready for that? You have espoused a really good theory. How do
we put it into place? Can I just tell you about my seven children?
Chairman: Not all of them.
Q484 Mr Pollard: Spanning 20 years,
eldest to the youngest. Very little careers advice apart from
a table with some pamphlets on, and a teacher given £2,000
or £1,500, or whatever it was, to look after this, and all
of that. The county, the LEA, tried their best, but again not
achieving very much because of, I think, under-resourcing. Are
we there now on resourcing? There are two bits there.
Ms Hughes: So the first part is
do they need it?
Q485 Mr Pollard: No. I suppose you
could say that my changes over my life, spanning 40 years, now
things have got much shorter. Are we ready for those changes?
You have talked about the who, why and how and all that business,
and careers advice—talk to the Connexions service—they
are not ready for that at all.
Ms Hughes: I would have said yes,
they are not ready.
Q486 Mr Pollard: Thank you.
Ms Hughes: And we have, I think,
got to think of some really imaginative ways in which we can actually
address that issue. I think this review process is very timely
in terms of enabling us to reflect on what an effective career
service should and indeed could look like within the context of
teaching and learning. Cathy, do you wish to respond?
Ms Bereznicki: I think, like you,
we have a lot more to do. In the 21st century we have to have
a 21st century approach to how we provide careers guidance. You
said something that actually reflected what I forgot earlier,
which was that there are lots of people involved in careers guidance.
When we look at it and we look at young people, they go to their
parents a lot for careers guidance. A lot of parents say to me
"My child doesn't talk to me", and parents say they
are anxious about talking to their children about careers, but
that is the major influence on young persons—their parents.
Out of those two their major influence is their mother. So there
are lots of people who are associated with advice on careers,
but actually among professionals I think it is a case of using
all those different pieces of expertise. In schools, for example,
there is a coordinator, normally. They do not have a lot of time,
unfortunately, and maybe about a third of them are qualified in
careers, but they are supposed to coordinate activities. So there
will be a tutor or an individual year tutor who helps the young
person as well. The careers side, the careers expert, the careers
advisors, perhaps, from Connexions or wherever else, have to back
that process up, because the individual tutor is always going
to know the young person better than the careers advisor, and
the parents are always going to know the young person better than
the tutor. So they have to work together in partnership to make
that effective. You said you changed career three times; some
economists are saying we are going to be changing career 19 times—and
that is a lot of changes of jobs. The Chancellor has talked about
making job change efficient and effective, and if people are changing
jobs that many times we certainly need to do that.
Q487 Mr Pollard: Do all teachers
need to be trained in careers guidance so that as they are teaching
their different subjects, they can drop things in about careers
guidance, even if they are just talking about things—PSE
and stuff like that.
Ms Bereznicki: It is interesting
you say that, because it used to be a cross-curricular notion
that there would be careers in every particular subject—so
careers in chemistry, science, English, history—so that
they could build that sort of information. Teachers are so incredibly
busy and they do not have a lot of time. Even if you did, chemistry,
for example, you have to keep up with what is going on, and it
is hugely demanding. So we need a smart way of providing them
with that sort of back-up and that sort of information that they
need, so that they can support a young person in looking for that
information themselves, because they are not going to be there
when the young person is changing. What often we find nowadays
is a major career change at that age, so young people need to
acquire those skills themselves of looking for information and
sourcing it, making a judgement about whether it is right for
them, whether it is up-to-date, et cetera; and we need to make
sure that they have those skills.
Q488 Mr Pollard: What age should
students start being counselled about careers advice?
Ms Bereznicki: I was smiling recently
when I looked at Scotland, where the careers education specification
starts at age three. You might think "Oh, you're not going
to be talking to three-year-olds about choosing a career?",
and of course you are not, but they are aware of careers, and
any of you who have three-year-olds will know that Bob the Builder
and Postman Pat are quite influential. So they begin to develop
a sense of themselves, and that develops through obviously their
neurological development and their psychological development.
When they get to their early teens—13, 14—they start
to develop a very strong sense of themselves. They go through
fantasies about what they might like to be. They might like to
be a footballer or whatever it is that is there, and as they get
to their early teens they begin to make that a lot more concrete
for themselves, and develop a very strong sense of self. So that
is the time when you have to be supporting that all the way through
it, because they will come to that at different stages as well.
Sometimes at 14 you have a young person who is almost an adult,
and sometimes they are more of a child.
Q489 Chairman: Then why do employers
say that many young person pitch up into employment with very
little knowledge of what jobs are about?
Ms Hughes: May I address that
issue, just to simply add to what Cathy has said. The National
Association of Careers and Guidance Teachers suggests that what
all teachers need as part of their initial teacher training is
to have a module or to have an element within the teacher training
that actually educates them on different ways in which individuals
can learn—different learning styles, different approaches
to problem solving and decision making that actually help career
exploration. Research from the National Foundation for Educational
Research suggests that you cannot start too early with regards
to career exploration skills development. We should start the
whole process of problem solving and decision making within teaching
and learning at a very early age in primary school. There is evidence
that actually says that young people, I believe it is, 14-16—can
I just check my notes on this—research evidence shows that
young people who actually have developed career exploration skills
are less likely to drop out and switch courses than those who
have not. I guess the Chair will want me to come back to his main
question, which is about why are employers saying that young people
arriving are on their doorstep ill equipped. I think there are
lots of reasons for that. Many would say that from an employer's
perspective, schools are not adequately preparing young people.
Schools would argue that employers are not adequately engaging
in the teaching and learning debate, so there are two sides to
this coin. I think in terms of the research and indeed the practice—and
you must not forget the practice here—in a lot of my work
I spend time with practitioners who are working in schools, seeking
to effect change, sometimes as a lone worker coming into a large
establishment. A key issue is what skills do employers actually
want and need? We know there is an extensive body of literature
and you have already heard from other speakers what employers
actually want. For many, what employers are looking for are the
skills of flexibility, adaptability, and an enquiring mind. So
I think, Chair, what we have to say—I welcome really this
whole review process—we have to look at the whole range
of skills that we need to nurture for the 21st century and beyond,
which is about enabling young people to value their knowledge
and skills, and understand better the opportunities available
to them. Cathy mentioned that we have lots of labour market information.
We most certainly have; in fact we have a plethora of labour market
information. The issue is how are we actually using it? The role
of the Sector Skills Councils I think provides a very important
and significant opportunity to link with colleagues at a local
regional and indeed at a national level, to listen to what practitioners
report their consumers and their clients are asking for in labour;
and also for them to ensure that what they are not doing is just
producing more of the same labour market information. I very much
feel, from my discussions with the Skills Sector Development Agency,
encouraged by their initial approach. They are looking to seek
to connect with Connexions—if you will forgive the pun—and
information, advice and guidance partnerships. Indeed they have
commissioned the Institute of Employment Research at Warwick University
to begin that process of looking at what the Connexions and the
IAG partnerships need and want to add value to that which already
exists.
Chairman: Helen, did you want to go into
some more depth on that?
Q490 Helen Jones: Can we explore
the issue about advice in schools a little more. Do you feel that
the advice that most of our young people get when they are in
school, in which their teachers are very influential, is sufficiently
informed? Are the teachers themselves sufficiently informed to
allow their pupils to access the right information about the subject,
about choices of future career path, and are they sufficiently
independent, particularly when they are advising young people
about perhaps where they should go after 16, in particular, whether
or not they should take the university route, or maybe if they
do not want to take the university route, do they have sufficient
information to allow those young people to make informed choices?
If not, what should be done about it?
Chairman: Who wants to take that? Cathy?
Ms Hughes: I am happy to respond.
This has been a particular area of interest in my research. I
think first of all I would like to say—and I am delighted
that we have a review of careers education and guidance in schools;
that was one of the key recommendations in my paper and indeed
in other papers that you have received—so I think we now
are at the beginning really of getting beneath those important
questions and getting a feel for that. My answer would be "No".
I do not think at present schools are sufficiently informed about
what is happening in the labour market. I do not say that as a
slight in any way on schools. Schools are large organisations
that are stretched with ever-changing demands, and having to constantly
think about how best to deploy their limited resources. The issue
of independence impartiality is a really interesting one. If you
look at Denmark, for example, and career education and guidance,
they actually shifted their resources into schools; the rationale
being that it would be much easier, in a sense, to manage, and
that schools would have more responsibility in being able to support
young people with their transitions. What has actually happened
recently in Denmark is that they have now taken a different approach
because of two key issues. Issue number one is the idea of impartiality.
There is always going to be a danger of a school, however good
the school might be, of a requirement for them to fill their sixth
form, or perhaps where they have strong links with other colleges,
they seek to build alliances in the interest of the school rather
than the young person. A further issue is the schools weak links
with the labour market; that is the reason why in Denmark they
decided not to just only have a school-based system. What they
recommended was a school-based system along with external services
to enhance and support and bring another dimension into the school.
That is linking teachers with experts who are able to provide
training and support as well as providing information, advice
and guidance. So those would be the two main points I would wish
to say on that.
Q491 Helen Jones: Can I try and follow
that up, because if we were to go down that road, it seems to
me that there are two problems with that. Perhaps you could assist
us with how they might be dealt with. The first is that it appears
to me that Connexions as it is currently working does not have
sufficient resources to provide the service we would want to all
young people, and how would you go about rectifying that? The
second is that if we have advisors based in schools who are not
school staff, what should their relationship be to the head teacher
of the school? How can you then safeguard their independence?
How can they ensure that the teachers they work with are able
to give independent advice? As you say quite rightly, there is
always a built-in bias, whether you mean it to be there or not,
towards your own institution; that is entirely natural. If we
are to improve the service offered in schools, how would you get
round those problems?
Ms Bereznicki: Several ways. One
of the issues is about shared expectation—what everybody
thinks they are actually doing—so to have some sort of shared
understanding between the services coming from outside, and the
people who are inside the school, or inside the college for that
matter, and offering guidance. It has worked reasonably well where
that sort of agreement has been established and where people have
some sort of mutual aim in terms of offering that sort of advice
and guidance. I have known of people who have said "No, you
have to take the person out of the school after three or four
years", because they become part of that institution and
begin to have that sort of institutional leaning. Perhaps part
of the issue is that if we did not measure schools entirely on
numbers in sixth-forms and on A-level results—I know that
is changing now—then we might find that was much easier
to do. In fact in my experience in schools which are 11-16—just
up to 16—that arrangement is easier to deal with in terms
that post-16 numbers are not priorities in those schools. There
are others in school like learning advisors, people who are going
in with different kinds of hats on that work very well with teachers.
I think partly what we are talking about here is the massive size
of the material that is going on in the labour market and is going
on through education outside the school, but it is hugely difficult
to get a line to get through to teachers. It is unreasonable for
us to expect teachers to have all of that knowledge. We have to
support them with having systems and information systems and ways
of getting that.
Q492 Helen Jones: Could you perhaps
elaborate on that? I hear what you are saying about having systems
and support systems, but can you try and tell us exactly what
you mean by that, because the problem as I see it is that the
real problems are resources and time for schools and teachers,
and if you are going to do a lot of careers guidance and careers
education properly, it is a major drain on the teachers' time,
it is a major drain on the schools' resources, because you have
to take people out of the main timetable to do it. What support
do you see being put in place to enable those teachers to have
the access to the information and resources that they need, bearing
in mind that they are not yet operating in a perfect world, and
there are restraints on them?
Ms Hughes: I think you are making
an important point here.
Chairman: I am afraid that is a division.
Can you hold that reply until we get back, and we will continue
as soon as we are quorate.
The Committee suspended from 4.50 pm to 5
pm for a division in the House.
Q493 Chairman: We are quorate again,
so we can get started again now.
Ms Hughes: Chair, would you like
us to pick up on the questions that have been asked?
Q494 Chairman: Do you need to be
reminded of the last question or are you OK?
Ms Hughes: No, that is fine. Correct
me if I am wrong; I am sure you will. I think the first question
really was around Connexions and schools' resources. I think I
can best summarise the scenario by being very realistic—there
are insufficient resources currently available to enable every
person, child and adult, to have access to information, advice
and guidance at any time at any stage in their life. The reality
is that the resources are scarce. I think in response to how do
we best cut our cloth accordingly, there are two things really
to say on that. One is that we are seeing through Connexions developments
an increasing and, I think, positive expansion of website and
helpline services. They are opening up access to young people
at differing times to suit their particular needs. So I think
what we have to do is actually see that we are moving into a time
when many young people are using the internet and telephone more
frequently. We recently conducted a US study tour on behalf of
Learndirect where we were looking at telephone helpline services
for adults. So I think in response to your question what I would
say is I am not suggesting that what we need is to say "Let's
use all our resources only to help those most disadvantaged, and
the rest can have telephone or website support". The reason
I am not saying that, is that, there is a wealth of international
research that shows that actually just having access to the web
or to a telephone helpline does not necessarily guarantee that
it will meet your needs. The human face-to-face contact is important,
if you think about other habits in our life, around for example
banking and using websites, we often want to pick up the phone
and we want to have a voice to listen to and to talk to. One of
the areas I think we should not under-estimate really is how career
guidance can be delivered through that medium of website helplines,
and also through the training of experts to be able to provide
careers guidance over the telephone. The Open University has been
doing it for years; it has a long history of that. We know that
it can be done. I would suggest that that is an area that is under-exploited
at this stage. I think the second point around advisors in schools
is how to manage this effectively? Cathy rightly pointed out that
there is a sense from much of the research that advisors can become
institutionalised themselves. Indeed some would argue that teachers
become rather institutionalised themselves by staying in one environment.
They will not like me saying that, but I will say it anyway. Let
me give you an example. In Coventry, they actually have career
advisors who have worked in their schools for years—a very
different model to other careers guidance models pre-Connexions.
Coventry Careers Service stated that having a careers advisor
in school actually was much more effective because they were able
to influence teachers and senior managers. So I think there are
pros and cons in any model that we choose. I have done quite a
lot of research around Connexions within schools and the key significant
point that demonstrates where it has been most successful is where
a senior manager within the school actually has direct responsibility
for helping to link advisors work into the schools' strategic
development plan. I think we must not under-estimate the values
that principals, head teachers or indeed the senior management
play in terms of developing career exploration skills within the
curriculum. The second point really linked to that is that to
suggest that all teachers have to become careers experts is again
I think an over-ambitious ideal, but I do think that we now have
an opportunity to look at how the skills and expertise that is
available from professionally-trained career advisors can actually
be used in pedagogical practice. Much of the work of professional
career advisors is about teaching and learning. There is an adage
"Give a woman a fish and she'll eat for a day. Teach a woman
how to fish and she'll be able to feed herself for the rest of
her life". Really careers guidance is very much about teaching
and learning. We know there is hard evidence we can draw from
that says that young people who are taught to develop their career
exploration skills—and by that I mean problem solving, decision
readiness, their ability to reflect on themselves and their ability
to appreciate the context in which they will perhaps move on to—are
likely to have higher levels of success in their studies. My response
to that is we need to find smarter ways of actually supporting,
training and informing teachers on the various developments around
not just linking and knowing what is going on in the labour market—the
challenge of how do we actually get teachers to understand what
is going in the labour market needs to be addressed. I think we
have to recognise that within careers work there are different
models which are about individuals' teaching and learning styles,
and this is a wonderful opportunity for us to begin to work more
closely with the teacher training agencies and with the others
who are inputting to the curriculum, to work more closely in partnership
and be clear who is responsible for what, with the shared vision
of working to help increase the capacity and capability of young
people to cope with transition in a much more effective way.
Chairman: I am embarrassed about this
in the sense that I now have to bring down the short questions
and short answers rule, only because we are going to have more
divisions; and if we are going to get through this and Connexions
we are going to have to have short, sharp questions and answers.
So, colleagues and witnesses, you will realise that constraint.
We are learning a lot, and we would like to do this, but we do
need to move on. Helen, if you have finished your section let
us move on to Paul, who is going to ask about Connexions.
Q495 Paul Holmes: You ask for short
questions and then turn to me. There are a number of concerns
about the way Connexions has developed, which obviously Connexions
will be able to answer themselves shortly, but I was interested
in your perspectives from an outside interest. One of the concerns
is how far, if we ask Connexions to concentrate and do a lot of
work on things like health and personal issues, is that a good
thing or does that undermine the whole careers service? For example,
in the notes that were submitted by the Guidance Council you say
that this process can result in young people receiving careers
advice from people with insufficient training in what is becoming
an increasingly complex discipline. This is rather like saying
that history teachers could teach physics, simply because they
have a foundation in teaching skills and know where to find reference
books. To somebody who is a history teacher, I know full well
that I could not teach physics or maths or chemistry or biology
simply because I had teaching skills. How big a problem is that,
that we have diluted the old careers service by getting Connexions
to concentrate on personal and health issues rather than on careers?
Ms Bereznicki: I remember writing
that. The focus on health and social issues is really important
because everybody's career choice or choices of pathways for careers
are made within the context of how healthy they are and where
they are in society and what they feel about their lives, and
other difficulties that they might be facing along the way—homelessness
and things like that. So I do not think the two can be easily
divorced, but it is the way that we look at people who might be
called personal advisors in Connexions that needs to be very carefully
explored. Actually I am a Trustee of a homeless charity as well
in my spare time, and equally I would not like to think that anybody
would be giving advice on homelessness and what to do about homelessness
unless they were really equipped to do so; so the argument applies
the other way as well. I am going to suggest to you that unless
you are an expert in careers it is very difficult to give careers
advice unless you have had that sort of back-up and unless you
have that sort of resource behind you. If anybody were to start
to actually give you careers guidance and they were not qualified,
then I would be wanting to ask questions about that. We need to
look therefore at the profile of skills within the Connexions
service, because largely they were careers advisors and they came
with careers advisors' skills. But if that is changed maybe in
five years' time we will find that there are not as many people
with careers guidance skills, and yet we are asking them and through
this 14-19 reform we are asking them to do things which are quite
challenging. So we would need to look at that as well.
Ms Hughes: May I add in short
that we have to make decisions here around whether we are looking
to Connexions in the future to focus on prevention and recovery
and where progression fits into that in the wider sense of the
universal service for all. I would endorse everything that Cathy
has said. I think we are at a critical stage. I think we must
not under-estimate the good work that has gone on in Connexions,
particularly supporting young people at risk, and I would like
to emphasise that. I would also like to emphasise that we are
at a crossroads, and with the emergence of the Children's Trust,
which will be very much focused on prevention issues, we have
to ask ourselves, when Connexions sits around a table with other
services—youth services, social services and indeed others—what
will be the contribution of Connexions? I suggest to you that
what Connexions could do—and indeed I will be as bold as
to say they should do—is actually be the careers service
of the future, that brings with it its unique links to the labour
market and that important role of having that specialist expertise
and knowledge to support young people in the schools and colleges.
Q496 Paul Holmes: The second major
area of concern that is expressed around the country, and certainly
was expressed when I was head of sixth-form by the careers officers
who were looking ahead to Connexions being set up, was that even
as careers experts they were going to be asked more and more to
concentrate not on careers guidance to everybody, but to those
who either had dropped out or were in danger of dropping out.
That may be seen as a good thing, but one of the greatest causes
of students dropping out of university prior to student debt was
the fact that they had chosen the wrong course, wrong institution,
because they had not had enough advice. It seems there is a big
danger in assuming that bright kids who are passing their exams
will know what they are going to do, so we can leave them and
concentrate on other people. Have you any views on that?
Ms Hughes: I think the fundamental
issue is the confusion in terms of who is best qualified to provide
expert careers guidance; and secondly, when and how should that
be provided. We are actually seeing a move towards what is called
need-based services. There are three categories of services which
in many ways Connexions has helped bring about, which are: self-help;
brief staff-assisted advice, if you need it; and in-depth support.
The problem we currently have is that for those, as you call them,
bright kids, or kids who are not in the target group, actually
it is a lottery and a chance situation as to the extent and quality
of careers information, advice and guidance you might receive.
What I would suggest to the Committee is we have to recognise
that resources can only be divided up in a certain number of ways.
At the minute what we are saying is we are focusing on prevention
and recovery for the targeted group. I think with our target of
50% going into higher education, if we then look at the research
findings of drop-out from higher education, it is a serious issue
that we are currently neglecting in terms of the preparedness
of young people to equip them to move through an ever-changing
higher education structure and work.
Q497 Paul Holmes: The third question:
there is a lot of talk now about individual learning plans being
the answer to all our problems in the future. A typical secondary
school teacher on a subject speciality will teach between 200-600
different kids each week; I taught 300 a week in my last year
of teaching. The thought of doing detailed individual learning
plans for each kid is pretty daunting to a teacher. In the Connexions
service when they are spread in between all these different priorities,
how far are they going to be able to make a major contribution
to learning plans across the board, or will it only be for a very
small selected sample of pupils?
Ms Hughes: I think the current
situation is that they do not have the resources to be able to
make that contribution across the board. I think for those young
people with whom Connexions has identified as currently at risk,
there are challenges around producing individual learning plans
for young people who, for many, have been disengaged from education
and employment. I read with interest Mike Tomlinson's report.
I do think this is a challenge ahead in that we have had an era
in the past of action plans; when career services were privatised
every young person had to have an action plan. I know from my
research and from teachers that I worked with that a sense of
ownership, or lack of it, has been the problem. To be brief, therefore,
what I would say is that we have to inculcate ways in which young
people feel that their learning plans are meaningful. Again, I
think we are talking about links with pedagogical practice and
looking at how best to describe young people's future plans and
transitions so that these individual learning plans can be more
meaningful for them, and dare I say it, I would encourage us to
think about the role of parents in all of this as well. Our experience
from action planning en masse a few years back with careers services
adopting this practice was that, by not involving parents who
are the major influencing agents in young people's lives, we could
be well wasting a resource, and I would recommend strategies to
look at how we engage parents in this whole process. In Canada
they have career exploration skills as modules for parents coming
into school, and parents are educated on this process. What we
are suggesting to you is that teachers need this as well, but
also that there maybe some benefit in looking at how parents can
be supported to support their offspring and, indeed, I think many
would welcome it.
Chairman: We move on now to vocational
qualifications and the 14-19 reform group.
Q498 Jonathan Shaw: How well do you
think the current alternatives to GCSEs and A-levels are understood
and valued by employers? We are going to see hybrids coming on
with vocational GCSEs in a variety of different subjects. What
is your perspective on that?
Ms Bereznicki: It comes down to
a case of what employers are looking at in people leaving school,
and sometimes that is not very well articulated between the two.
Some sets of employers, I think the CBI in recent weeks, have
said they do not want to lose the A-level structure and it has
many good qualities. What is being proposed now is something that
will begin to stretch us beyond the A-level structure, building
on what has been around so far. Some young people are ready to
explore vocational issues. We mentioned earlier that at 14 some
young people have quite an adult attitude towards their career
and the kinds of things they might do after school, so I think
the offer of a vocational route is going to be something that
young people themselves will appreciate. What we would expect
to come out of that is that we would want to see young people
having an understanding of the world of work and of their place
in the world of work that comes through that sort of study, and
that is the kind of thing we would be looking for through vocational
qualifications or GCSEs that begin to take you through that more
flexible structure.
Q499 Jonathan Shaw: Tell us what
your views are on the Working Group on 14-19-year-olds? What is
your view on Tomlinson?
Ms Bereznicki: From the perspective
of career guidance people I am hugely encouraged by it. Over the
years I have worked in careers guidance, I have gone through CSEs
and GCSEs and all the different things that have been brought
forward—
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