Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500
- 511)
MONDAY 15 MARCH 2004
MS DEIRDRE
HUGHES AND
MS CATHY
BEREZNICKI
Q500 Jonathan Shaw: But there have
not been that many academic changes, have there? There has been
a panoply of vocational qualifications.
Ms Bereznicki: Yes, but that is
a feature as part of the tapestry of choice for young people.
From a guidance perspective there has been a lot on offer and
different sorts of approaches, and explaining that to parents
and employers has been quite complex over time. What we would
hope from the 14-19 diploma system is that it would be in some
ways a loose/tight arrangement where it is easy to see where people
are moving but more flexible for them to move around between vocational
and academic options. From the point of view of a careers adviser,
working from a young person's perspective, working with them and
their particular needs and developments, that system would be
far more useful.
Q501 Jonathan Shaw: How might the
proposals that Tomlinson is putting forward create more of a demand
for careers services? Just to digress for a minute, do you think
we are where we are because people do not really care, in terms
of the people who need to care?
Ms Hughes: There are a couple
of points there. Firstly, on the issue of vocational qualifications,
a recent research report published in February 2004 indicates
that students undertaking work-related learning activities in
the 14-19 pathfinder areas gave very positive responses to their
learning experiences. The findings also suggest that over half
of the colleges who have been involved have well-established links
with employers through work experience, visits and visiting speakers
coming into institutions. With regard to Tomlinson's report, I
endorse what Cathy says and I think it begins to open up a debate
really around work-related learning and what that means and for
whose benefit. We have had work experience around for a long time:
we do not have much time so I will not dwell on that but I do
think there are questions which I very much hope that Mike Tomlinson
and colleagues will consider more fully around how we make more
meaningful that work-related learning aspect within this new curriculum.
There are three issues that the research already points out that
I am sure Mike Tomlinson and colleagues will consider: one is
timetabling, two is training and three is the resource. On the
point you make about whether people really care and does Joe Bloggs
on the street really care, the answer is some do and some do not
and in many ways there will be lots of different reasons for those
people who do not care. I would put forward to the Committee that
what we need are imaginative ways in which we can stimulate renewed
interest, which is why I began my presentation to you by suggesting
that we need simple ways of being able to explain to employers
what careers and work-related learning is all about. Most employers
can relate to the concept of an intelligent organisation: you
can take those three ways of knowing in an organisation and say,
"Look at your human resources and think about not just what
you need now but also in the future". I think we have to
find employers, and champions really, of learning in the work
place. The trade unions have done a very good job on that and
that is a good example of where we have extended our thinking
more recently, but I do think that if the reform is going to have
a significant impact we have to look at this whole issue of work-related
learning. We know from the research that many small and medium-sized
companies are in business because they want to make money and
they want their organisation to be successful. What we also know
is that many of those companies would welcome more involvement
with schools but we have not done a lot of research on the process
so far. What we know is that health and safety issues, and rightly
so, are watertight, but what we do not have is very limited research
around what would make an SME want to involve schools more fully.
Indeed, in the Chesterfield area there was an initiative called
Agents for Change—in fact, I wrote a paper called Adapt
and Prosper—which was a model whereby a careers adviser
was going in and working with small companies to help them harness
their resources and to act as a broker between them, and that
is one example of a more imaginative way of working with employers
to find out about their requirements. Unfortunately that innovative
way of working was ESF funded and when the funding finished the
work stopped, and I hear what you say—that some people do
not care—but I think it is our collective role and responsibility
as policy makers and researchers to heighten people's awareness.
Q502 Mr Gibb: How do your clients,
the people that are being advised, regard the GCSE grades D-G
for the level 1 syllabus? How are those qualifications regarded?
Ms Hughes: I am not an expert
in that field. I can only reflect on what I know from my own experience.
Q503 Chairman: We like people who
confess they are not experts on our Committee!
Ms Hughes: I think it is fair
to say that if you asked a young person on the street who has
a E or F many people would feel a sense of failure, or some of
them would; others would see it as, "Is it not remarkable
that I managed to get a grade F?" For many young people we
are beginning to see different routes, both vocational and academic,
opening up, but we still have that stigma around the vocational
and academic divide. In short, it depends on the young person
concerned. If you had a young person who was dyslexic perhaps
whose school life had been a struggle, to obtain an E would be
the pinnacle of success in terms of their achievement. It is very
hard to generalise.
Ms Bereznicki: I agree.
Q504 Mr Gibb: Would you say, therefore,
that GCSEs were an error, and that the reforms that took place
in the late 80s to abolish CSEs and GCEs and combine them into
GCSEs was an error?
Ms Hughes: I do not think it is
very helpful to think in that way because any judgments we make
with the test of time we might look back on and say they were
errors.
Q505 Mr Gibb: But we are trying to
avoid other errors so we need to work out whether it is an error
or not. That is how I judge my own life—that it was something
I did in error.
Ms Hughes: I guess I do too but
I try not to dwell on it too much!
Q506 Mr Gibb: It may reveal some
grain of truth. If we can work out it was an error, then we can
work out who made the error and why.
Ms Hughes: I am not sure I can
answer the latter but I think it is helpful to look back on curriculum
developments. Many people hold up the TVEI initiative—Technical
Vocational Education—particularly in the field of careers
as a really good initiative which was very much around bridging
that academic/vocational gap. Really with regard to whether it
was an error, I would not feel well placed to say it was or not,
but what I would encourage the Committee to do is reflect on the
lessons that have been learned from the past and take from them
elements of good practice. I was very closely involved in TVEI
developments which is why I welcome Tomlinson's proposals. I think
we should learn lessons from the past in order to gain a better
handle on how we can connect young people, teachers, parents and
employers, to work in a more meaningful way together wherever
possible.
Q507 Chairman: Before we finish this
session, is there anything you would like to say to the Committee
that you think we have not covered, bearing in mind that we are
open for you to e-mail us, telephone us or whatever if you think
there are bits of this inquiry that we have not yet fully covered?
Ms Hughes: There is one really
important issue which I think we have not covered which I would
just like to put forward, and I would be happy to correspond outside
this forum if it is appropriate.
Q508 Chairman: Please go ahead.
Ms Hughes: The main issue is that
so far I think we have failed to acknowledge the cost of social
ignorance and the need for us to make some decisions—and
when I say "us" I mean the state—about whether
we are at the stage now where the state has a responsibility to
stimulate a more market-led approach to career guidance, ie looking
at introducing ways in which individuals who can pay and who may
be willing to pay can access now products and services. I know
this is slightly controversial which is why I have kept it to
the very end, but I simply add it really into the debate and the
equation because it was rightly pointed out that resources are
limited. I do think we are at the stage of looking at whether
a market-led approach is something that requires investigation,
and perhaps it is timely to do so. My only caveat around that
is I am not bringing to this Committee a proposal that I believe
we should have a market-led approach. My learned colleague Chris
Humphries from City and Guilds made a speech two years ago which
said, "We have not explored it", and I simply leave
the Committee with a view to thinking around whether this is something
in the context of careers work for the future that we should be
looking at, particularly with the advent of Connexions and learndirect
for young people and adults.
Q509 Chairman: By that you mean people
will pay for the careers advice they get?
Ms Hughes: Yes, absolutely. We
are already beginning to hear ideas about whether young people
are unable to gain access to high quality career guidance, then
perhaps what we should be doing is opening up the market to enable
that to flourish. I think the state needs to think obviously about
what is for the public good, and I have just conducted some research
in the United States looking at this very issue and will be publishing
a report on this very shortly, but at a time when resources are
shrinking there are two key points: should we be looking at products
and services that individuals can purchase to help them with their
career decision-making, and, secondly, and related to that, we
have currently in England only, not in Scotland, Northern Ireland
or Wales, a horizontal system of information, advice and guidance
for young people and adults. Time will tell, and we have a wonderful
opportunity to do some comparative work in these countries to
help us decide whether we should be looking for a more integrated
all age guidance service for young people and adults. They are
currently separate in England only and really we have to ask ourselves
whether that model is the one we wish to sustain in the future,
or do we want to move towards a more integrated approach?
Ms Bereznicki: Deidre has stolen
my thunder on that last point but I have a slightly different
view which is that we do need to look carefully, and this Committee
might want to look carefully, at how you pull together lifelong
career guidance and who should be involved in that. I am not 100%
convinced it should be all one service because people like to
respond in different ways, and young people will not necessarily
want to use the same service as adults and we have to be quite
responsive, I think. It is possible, however, to make that intellectual
link between them, and that is really important, so young people
in schools need to understand what career change is going to be
like. You mentioned earlier your several career changes. We now
see people in their twenties coming out of university; in future
it will be 50%—in Scotland it already is, and what does
that mean for their career choices? Some do not even think about
a career until the end of their university days, and then they
go off travelling for a year. They are making decisions later
and later, and all the census statistics tell us that people are
getting married later and buying their homes later, so they are
making big decisions later in their lives and we need not to encourage
young people to believe that they have destroyed their lives if
they make the wrong decisions between 14-19. We have to prepare
them for that lifelong process and we have an opportunity to do
that now by pulling together intellectually.
Q510 Chairman: You have stimulated
one more question which concerns something we were talking about
earlier, that there is a market out there. For goodness' sake,
I hear of children as young as eleven that have life coaches,
and more and more people have life coaches to give them advice
and guidance every step of the way, so there is a private market
out there but you have to be able to pay for it, have you not?
How do people who cannot afford to pay for it get it under a market
driven system?
Ms Hughes: I am being provocative
here really in planting seeds in our minds around future possibilities.
I am delighted you have mentioned that people have life and career
coaches. We are seeing a growing number of career coaches emerge.
Q511 Chairman: Are they any good?
There are no professional standards.
Ms Hughes: They are not regulated;
there are no quality standards. I make my point seriously simply
in terms of saying that the reality of the situation we have now
is that information advice and guidance services are not being
provided for all young people and we have to look at possibilities,
and I simply raise that issue in saying to you that if in policy
terms we do not make a clear statement around entitlement, not
just for information advice but for guidance, we will be creating
that market and encouraging it more, and we have to ask ourselves
whether that is for the public good.
Chairman: Thank you very much for that
evidence. It was very good indeed.
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