Examiation of Witnesses (Questions 128-139)
MR RICHARD
LONGSON AND
MR KIERAN
GORDON
1 APRIL 2008
Q128 Chairman: Thank you very much for
coming to give evidence. Would you like to introduce yourselves
and say what you do?
Mr Longson: I am Richard Longson,
this year's present of the Institute of Career Guidance. My day
job is head of careers at Leicester Grammar School. I am a qualified
teacher and career guidance practitioner.
Mr Gordon: I am Kieran Gordon,
immediate past president of the institute. My day job is that
of chief executive of Connexions Greater Merseyside providing
information, advice and guidance to young people.
Q129 Chairman: One of the influences
on people in deciding whether to join the Armed Forces is the
views of their families, friends and the people who have come
to be described as gate-keepers. Do you think that enough is being
done by the Ministry of Defence to influence these gate-keepers
or explain what life in the Armed Forces is like so there is a
realistic appreciation of that service?
Mr Longson: Sometimes it would
be quite difficult to reach gate-keepers. There is information
on the television. There are gate-keepers for parents, for instance.
Parents then come to it once young people have perhaps made a
decision to find out more about the Armed Services, and then it
is further down the line before the point where they say that
they want to join. It then becomes more of an urgent need to find
out about it. Parents have come to me and asked. There have been
situations where our Armed Services liaison officers have been
prepared to give parents a ring and speak to them. In a sense,
at that point there is support. As to the world of education where
teachers are also gate-keepers, a lot more visits used to be offered
by the MoD for people to go on things. They are still there. As
head of careers I have been offered a visit to, say, Sandhurst
to see how that works. I have also been to the Admiralty Interview
Board in the past. There is support there.
Q130 Chairman: You say there used
to be a lot more visits.
Mr Gordon: Yes. It was quite common
for the Armed Forces to arrange a regular carousel of visits for
teachers and advisers to spend some time with and get beneath
the skin of what it was like to go through a recruitment exercise
and the various trades and occupations that the Armed Forces provided.
There seem to be fewer of those than there were.
Q131 Chairman: Why?
Mr Gordon: I do not know.
Q132 Chairman: When did they reduce?
Mr Gordon: I would say it has
been perceptible over the past 10 years. I cannot quantify it
for you; it is just my experience. I have been in the careers
advice business since 1980. In my early years as an adviser there
were regular trips and experiences to be had and there seem to
be fewer now than there were then. There are some upsides to it;
there are now more opportunities for young people themselves to
get direct experience. Work experience and enterprise programmes
are now run for young people and they were not so common years
ago.
Mr Longson: Certainly in terms
of local RAF bases there has been a greater number of people going
out on work experience and a greater awareness and perception
of how schools operate, whereas before there was less understanding.
Q133 Chairman: Your memorandum suggests
that there is still quite a lot of interest in joining the Armed
Forces. Would you say that was true nationally? Are there regional
variations? How would you characterise that interest?
Mr Longson: I do not believe there
is a set picture and it is really across the piece. I do not believe
that compared with past years there has been a perceptible change.
Q134 Chairman: You spoke about visits
to military establishments by teachers and career guidance people.
What about visits to schools by the Armed Forces themselves? Are
they as regular as they used to be or have they tailed off?
Mr Gordon: My experience is that
they are still as regular as they used to be. Each of the three
Services comes to the careers evenings and conventions run by
a number of schools in my patch. The Armed Forces also become
involved in interviewing enterprise projects in schools with a
classroom-based approach. I do not detect any perceptible change
in that. Of the forces, the Army seems to me to be the most active
and proactive in that respect.
Q135 Chairman: From your experience
would you describe them as worthwhile visits?
Mr Gordon: The visits by the Army
to the schools?
Q136 Chairman: Yes.
Mr Gordon: Yes, I would.
Q137 Mr Hamilton: Is that also true
of the visits to schools in Scotland?
Mr Gordon: I would be surprised
if it was not, but I am not sure.
Q138 Chairman: Does not your institute
cover Scotland?
Mr Gordon: It does.
Q139 Chairman: It would be helpful
if you would let us know of your experience of Scotland, Wales
and Northern Ireland in that respect. Often in our inquiries we
find there is a variation between different areas of the country.
You say these visits are worthwhile. How do visits by the Armed
Forces to schools compare in terms of quality with visits by other
prospective employers?
Mr Longson: The quality of the
people who come in is high; it is a quality service. They fall
into two categories. There are visits about the Armed Services
themselves, but there are also skills development-type visits
where the Armed Services provide almost a service to support young
people. Obviously, the spin-off is to see the Armed Services as
part of the community which is very important and to develop the
skills of young people so that they become more aware indirectly
as opposed to direct adverts almost.
Mr Gordon: It is obviously very
important that the Armed Forces have the personnel, training and
resources to be able to present themselves very well in or out
of the school environment which individual employers do not necessarily
always have. Maybe some larger private and public sector employers
can do that. Usually, you find that professional bodies and institutes
or technicians compete on a reasonably level playing field, but
the majority of employers cannot deploy the personnel, resource
and expertise that very often the Armed Forces provide.
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