Education CommitteeWritten evidence submitted by British Youth Council

Submitter Introduction

I am writing on behalf of the British Youth Council. The British Youth Council, as the national youth council of the UK, aims to connect with our member organisations and networks of local youth councils, to empower young people aged 25 and under, wherever they are from, to have a say and be heard. We aim to help them to participate in decisions that affect them; have a voice and campaign on issues they believe in, inspire them to have a positive impact, and gain recognition for their positive contribution to communities, society and the world.

Executive Summary

With a rise in the number of NEET young people in the first quarter of 2012, and uncertainty about the future of our economy, the issue of good quality careers guidance is of huge importance. An online survey with over 500 young people aged 12–26 conducted by the British Youth Council, NCB and Young NCB was carried out into current Careers Guidance. The aim was to ascertain what young people say influences their decisions about jobs and careers and how they perceive the available sources of advice.

Young people say they are most influenced by parents, websites, teachers and friends, and over 80% of respondents who had received formal careers advice found it to be “a little bit” or “not at all” helpful. Perceptions about the helpfulness of formal careers advice did not vary significantly according to where it was delivered, suggesting that the setting may be less important than the way in which the advice is formulated and delivered.

In the light of these findings, future approaches to careers advice and guidance should:

Include measures to broaden the knowledge and understanding of the job market among all those who have real influence on young people’s decisions.

Avoid proposals on the relocation of any dedicated provision from one setting to another.

Consider the development of more self-accessed web-based solutions for informing and guiding young people, including tools that can be used by young people and their parents together.

(1) Quality of Careers Guidance

(i) Here at the British Youth Council an online survey of around 500 young people, aged 12–26 years, was carried out to ascertain their views and experiences of careers advice. Of all of the respondents who had received careers advice, 80% found it to be “a little bit” or “not at all” helpful. Respondents who had received careers guidance noted such things as; “The whole system was overly simplified, unrealistic and to be honest a little patronising” and “Absolutely useless, very little knowledge of what is out there and even less about practical steps needed to get there”. It is with this view point that we would start by saying that one of our biggest concerns would be the quality of career guidance on offer, and not necessarily the age at which it becomes mandatorily available.

(2) Who Delivers the Guidance?

(i) We are also aware of concerns about the independence of such guidance. It is, after all, often in the best interests of schools to encourage pupils to stay on for sixth form, due to the way schools are funded for these pupils. Our findings, however, indicate that there are a large percentage of young people, especially those aged 17—18years old, who found that advice regarding careers or further education was most influential when it came from teachers and/or parents. This finding is supported by TNS research which was carried out in 2008 and showed that the most favoured source of advice was parents or teachers. This was due to the fact that young people were found to want advice from a trusted adult with whom they already had a relationship. As such, we would note that instead of legislating that the guidance must be provided by an individual external to the school, it may prove more productive to ensure that those already influencing young people’s decision are better informed on the subject

(ii) However, job and careers websites are nudging into second place behind parents but before teachers (65.3% and 58.2% respectively), with 60.8% of young people saying they use these for information more than they use other family members, adverts, newspapers and magazines or TV. In fact, adverts seem to have a marginal influence, with only 19.9% of young people being influenced by them. Nearly a third (30.2%) of young people were influenced by multiple sources.

(iii) The use of websites appears to increase with age, perhaps because teachers are no longer available, and any authority parents had in this area has been “used up”. So while 54.5% of 14−21-year-olds get their information from the web, this rises to almost 70% of 22−26-year-olds. Web-based information is now a key route for young people and more should perhaps be being made of it, taking into account the fact that access may typically be unsupervised.

(iv) When asked which was the single most influential source of information, the pattern of the top four remains the same: parents (26.9%), followed by websites (22.6%), teachers (20%) and friends (10.8%). The value of using adverts as a source of information about jobs and careers drops to being the least influential, with only 1.9% of respondents finding them the most useful, followed by other relatives (2.8%), siblings (3.4%) and TV ( 4.7%).

(v) Boys and girls did not differ significantly in their perceptions of key influences, with the exception of the roles of television and websites. Girls were significantly more likely than boys to view the web as a key influence (63.4% vs. 48.4%, respectively), while boys were more likely than girls to view TV as a key influence (48.4% vs. 29.8%). Both boys and girls were more likely to report the web as a key influence over TV, but this was particularly true for girls.

(3) Significance of Location

(i) The minimal difference in levels of perceived helpfulness across settings suggests that the setting in which careers guidance takes place may have very little impact on how it is rated by young people. So shifting the location of services would not be money well spent. However, this small survey at least indicates that more investigation is required about how, when and from whom young people obtain advice, as well as into the implications for public investment and the design of careers advice and guidance.

Breakdown of the 19.8% of young people who found formal careers advice “very helpful” by location.

Location/service used

Full sample (12−26)

School/careers advice service

17.80%

Community/Connexions service

20.60%

University/careers guidance

21.40%

College/careers guidance

24.50%

(4) Changing the Age range of Mandatory Careers Guidance

(i) It is hard to escape that despite a drop in the number of NEET children aged 16–18 between the first quarter of 2010 and the first quarter of 2011, this figure is now on the rise again. We, like yourselves, are concerned at the high numbers of young people that fall into this category and support any initiative which may aid in rectifying this. During our own survey, however, we actually found that the large majority of 17–18 year olds surveyed, 87.5%, had already received formal careers advice. Nevertheless, 78.6% of respondents in this age category found the advice to be “a little bit” or “not at all” helpful and as such we would emphasise our desire to see an improvement in the quality of such guidance. Despite such a high percentage of people in this age range already receiving careers guidance, in our somewhat limited survey at least, we would like to see all young people at this transitional stage in their education/career receiving high quality careers guidance. Although the legislation can do little to ensure quality we feel that this is a vital first step towards providing what can, and would, be an invaluable service to these young people.

(ii) With reference to careers guidance for pupils in Year 8, we understand that a very different approach is often taken with children of this age; activities such as decision making games are used to assist young people develop the skills they can then apply to their own opportunities. We also appreciate that some young people do move from a middle school to a secondary school in year 9 and as such prior advice on the options open to them at this stage could be extremely useful. That said, we feel that an obligation for every child at this age to undergo careers advice from an individual or group external to their school would simple create an unnecessary burden for both child and school. Except for the minority of children who join secondary school at this age most children are not required to make decisions, such as choosing GCSE options, until the end of year 9—an age group that is already covered by the initial guidance. Much has already been made about the mounting pressure on young people at school, SATs, CATs etc and our belief is that insisting on the undertaking of careers guidance, and the associated implications that these young people need to be making decisions about their future, would only unnecessarily add to this pressure.

October 2012

Prepared 22nd January 2013