4 Engaging young people
Current
levels of engagement
50. Professor Alison Fuller told us:
The rather stubborn figure that remains is about
6% of 16-to-19s will at some point start a Government supported
apprenticeship. It is important to have that context; it is very
small and it has not gone up. It remains a challenge to increase
it.[64]
51. One factor that hinders young people when competing
with older applicants is that some employers may (in some cases
quite correctly) see young people as being unprepared for the
workplace. The CBI suggested to us that "a lack of work readiness
and the failure of our education system to equip young people
with the skills that employers value are two major contributors
to youth unemployment".[65]
Ensuring that schools provide good quality careers advice and
prepare young people for the workplace effectively is key to enabling
them to take advantage of apprenticeships.
School attitudes towards apprenticeships
52. Assessment of school performance is still seen
by some as limited to the school's GCSE or A-level results. Newham
College of Further Education reported that:
The promotion of year seven entry places to parents
within schools only focuses on the university progression of their
year 13 pupils. Progression onto apprenticeships or work is never
promoted.[66]
53. More widely, newspaper coverage of school performance
is limited to covering GCSE and A-level results data. Newspapers
use data from the DfE to provide a school-by-school breakdown
of performance data for 16-18 year olds that is limited to A-level
results only.[67] This
may encourage schools to favour traditional, academic routes rather
than vocational options.
54. The Sutton Trust conducted a survey in 2014 analysing,
among other things, teachers' views of apprenticeships. It found
that 65% of teachers would rarely or never advise a student to
take an apprenticeship if they had the grades for university.[68]
Careers advice
55. In January 2013 we published our report into
careers guidance for young people, which argued for greater oversight
of schools to encourage them to provide good quality careers advice.[69]
Following that report, in April 2014 the Government published
new guidance for the 2014/15 academic year, which included suggestions
for what might constitute good careers guidance while allowing
for variation in pupils' needs. Looking at apprenticeships, the
guidance asks:
Do pupils have access to impartial information
and advice on a broad range of options to include apprenticeships,
entrepreneurialism and vocational routes alongside A-levels and
university, to support informed decisions at key transition points?[70]
56. The Government also accepted our recommendation
that the National Careers Service should play a greater role in
capacity building and brokering relationships between schools
and employers.[71]
57. We received a wide range of evidence to this
inquiry that there has been no measurable improvement in the quality
of careers advice since the publication of our previous report.
Lorna Fitzjohn, Ofsted's National Director for Further Education
and Skills, told us that their 2013 review of careers advice in
schools found that "only one in five schools was offering
the quality of careers advice and guidance at a good level".[72]
In January 2015 the Secretary of State told us that she had "no
reason to dispute that 80% figure from 2013".[73]
58. Some examples of good practice do exist. Katerina
Rudiger, Head of Skills and Policy Campaigns at the Chartered
Institute of Personnel Development, told us about their support
for the Inspiring the Future Programme, where employers volunteer
to provide careers talks to schools.[74]
Lorna Fitzjohn summarised a range of good initiatives that Ofsted
had looked at:
There are some very good enterprise programmes
about. We have had a close look at those, with people involved
in business enterprise, often with local companies that come in
and do that, which gives them some experience within the school
setting of running a business. We have seen examples where employers
come in and do some interviewing. You have got the usual talks
that people might do and we see opportunity to shadow someone
at work. We see employers involved as governors, which then has
a knock-on effect down to more work experience. There is a wide
range of things that can be done so that there is that line of
sight to work.[75]
These individual cases demonstrate that good quality
careers advice should be achievable in every school, but clearly
more needs to be done to encourage all schools to reach this level.
School outcomes
59. Since summer 2014 pupils have been required to
stay in some form of education or work-based learning until they
are 18.[76] New Economy
Manchester suggested to us that raising the participation age
may deter people from exploring vocational options, due to confusion
about what is required:
The policy of Raising the Participation Age reinforces
an existing social norm of staying longer in formal education
(the RPA policy may have been misinterpreted by some as referring
to staying in formal education rather than 'in learning' which
includes apprenticeships).[77]
60. City and Guilds went further, arguing that there
could be a perverse incentive for schools to keep young people
in traditional education who would be better off in an apprenticeship—raising
the participation age was seen as encouraging schools and colleges
to retain young people in order to ensure that the school or college
continued to receive funding from Government.[78]
61. Good quality destination data, which tracks labour
market outcomes for pupils over time, would incentivise schools
to seek the best possible outcomes for their students. The Government
has made improvements to the range of destination data available,
making information about vocational performance available online
as part of the performance tables provided by the DfE,[79]
as well as publishing more detailed destination data annually
as part of a statistical release.[80]
But there is still more to be done.
The role of Ofsted
62. The DfE told us that Ofsted had committed to
giving careers advice a higher profile in school inspections.[81]
When discussing this issue Lorna Fitzjohn reiterated that the
quality of careers advice was a priority in inspections but conceded
that Ofsted's reduced resources meant that there would be fewer
inspections.[82] The
Minister suggested to us that he would welcome schools being marked
down a grade in Ofsted inspections where a school "completely
fails to provide independent advice and guidance or to give the
local FE college or apprenticeship provider an opportunity to
come in and talk about what they do".[83]
This renewed focus should be encouraged, but it is clear that
Ofsted alone cannot ensure that schools provide good quality careers
advice.
63. In our previous report we suggested that schools
should publish a careers plan to provide transparency about what
the school would offer in terms of careers guidance and work towards
the Quality in Careers standard to incentivise schools to provide
good quality careers advice.[84]
The Government did not accept our recommendations, arguing that
mandating the approach to careers would run counter to the aim
of reducing bureaucracy.[85]
We welcome the Government's recent announcement that it will consider
updating its guidance on careers advice to include information
about the Quality in Careers standard[86]
but we remain convinced that further action is needed as the needs
of young people and the incentives for schools are not aligned.
Changing the incentives for schools remains the greatest challenge
in improving careers advice, and thereby ensuring that young people
receive the information they need on apprenticeships and the benefits
they can bring.
Work experience
64. As we set out at the beginning of the chapter,
employers often cite a lack of work-readiness as a reason not
to employ a younger person. Effective work experience is a key
part of preparing young people for the workplace. Katerina Rudiger
from the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development told us:
Lack of work experience is the one thing that
really disadvantages young people in the labour market, plus work
experience is quite popular amongst employers actually. Over half
of employers offer work experience and they are quite keen to
offer high-quality work experience.[87]
65. James Whelan told us that simply having a two
week block where every student goes off on a placement of varying
quality does not suit all young people, schools, or employers.[88]
Professor Alison Fuller told us that "A hallmark of the highest
quality vocational education programmes is mandatory work placements
that are structured as part of the curriculum".[89]
She went on to describe the Young Apprenticeship programme, which
ran from 2004 to 2010:
The strong feature of them was that it was not
a case of closing down options for those 14 to 16-year-olds who
were on that programme because they had to do seven GCSEs as well.
It was an enhanced 14-to-16 programme, and the evidence is that
the graduates from that programme were going in all sorts of different
directions: some into pure A-levels; some into Level 3 vocational
full time; and some into apprenticeships. It did not seem to be
closing doors, and it did seem to be providing a vehicle for developing
very good employer/school relationships.[90]
David Sims from the National Foundation for Educational
Research said that they had undertaken a national evaluation that
supported this view.[91]
The scheme was phased out on grounds of cost, but it illustrates
how work experience can be delivered in a more effective way than
the traditional week or two-week block.
66. In our previous report, responding to widespread
criticism of the Government's decision to remove the statutory
duty to provide work experience, we recommended that schools be
required to provide work-related learning.[92]
Schools still require more encouragement to provide proper work-preparation
for their pupils.
Conclusions and recommendations
67. Misunderstanding
by schools of the content, progression opportunities and benefits
of apprenticeships is compounded by a cultural preference for
the academic over the vocational and by incentives to fill sixth
form places rather than offer alternatives to young people.
68. Careers
advice in schools continues to be inadequate for most young people.
We welcome the collection of destination data by the Government
and the opportunity this provides to see what happens to pupils
when they leave schools and colleges. There is little evidence,
however, that this has sufficiently altered incentives for schools.
69. We recommend that the Government urgently
review the incentives for schools to provide good quality careers
advice and recognise that the mantra of "trusting schools"
does not work when the interests of schools and young people are
not aligned.
70. We welcome
the increased emphasis that Ofsted is putting on careers advice
when inspecting schools, but agree with Ofsted that their oversight
alone provides insufficient incentive for schools to change.
71. We recommend that the Government require schools
to publish a careers plan and work towards the Quality in Careers
standard.
72. The Government should encourage schools to
incorporate work experience into the 14-16 curriculum.
73. The Young Apprenticeships scheme, which provided
14 to 16 year-olds with a credible vocational option that combined
academic study with regular work-based experience, was considered
effective at delivering good quality work experience. We recommend
that the Government look at reviving this programme or developing
a model that replicates its core academic and work-based components
for this age group.
64 Q12 Back
65
CBI (AAT0078) para 23 Back
66
Newham College of Further Education () para 30 Back
67
Daily Telegraph, A-level school league tables 2013, 23 January
2014; the Guardian, A-level results 2014 database, 14 August 2014 Back
68
Sutton Trust () para 7 Back
69
Education Committee, Seventh Report of Session 2012-13, Careers Guidance for young people: the impact of the new duty on schools,
HC 632-I Back
70
DfE, Careers Guidance and Inspiration in Schools: Departmental advice for governing bodies, school leaders and school staff,
April 2014, p. 4 Back
71
Education Committee, Sixth Special Report of Session 2012-13,
Careers guidance for young people: The impact of the new duty on schools: Government Response to the Committee's Seventh Report of Session 2012-13,
HC1078, pp.3-4 Back
72
Q155 [Lorna Fitzjohn] Back
73
Oral evidence taken on 7 January 2015, HC (2014-15) 333, Q159 Back
74
Q194 Back
75
Q191 Back
76
DfE Evidence Check Memorandum: Raising the Participation Age,
para 1 Back
77
New Economy Manchester () para 1.7 Back
78
City & Guilds (AAT0020) para 3 Back
79
DfE, School Performance Tables Back
80
DfE, Destinations of Key Stage 4 and Key Stage 5 pupils Back
81
DfE () para 7.8 Back
82
Q164 Back
83
Q457 Back
84
Education Committee, Seventh Report of Session 2012-13, Careers Guidance for young people: the impact of the new duty on schools,
HC 632-I, paras 105 and 63 Back
85
Education Committee, Sixth Special Report of Session 2012-13,
Careers guidance for young people: The impact of the new duty on schools: Government Response to the Committee's Seventh Report of Session 2012-13,
HC1078, p.8 Back
86
DfE () p.3 Back
87
Q188 [Katerina Rudiger] Back
88
Q187 Back
89
Q73 Back
90
Q75 Back
91
Q76 Back
92
Education Committee, Seventh Report of Session 2012-13, Careers Guidance for young people: the impact of the new duty on schools,
HC 632-I, para 109 Back
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