Education Bill

Debate between Baroness Howe of Idlicote and Baroness Wall of New Barnet

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Grand Committee

[Baroness Howe of Idlicote]

I am certainly in sympathy with everything that has been said on this subject. It takes me back quite a long way to the Sex Discrimination and Equal Pay Acts, in which education was one of the areas covered. We spent quite a lot of time encouraging teachers in girls’ schools to take a more proactive role in opening up ideas of different careers for the girls than was the tradition. I am sad to say that there is still quite a gap there. On the comment made about teachers not being adequate to do that job, it would not be a bad idea as part of their training if, periodically, they had to take a job for a while in the real world to see what are the practices here and now.

In engineering, all these years later, there is a dearth of girls prepared to take on that career. It depends to some extent on the people they see out there in the real world. If not many have made it to the top of their career, are running things and are looked up to by the rest of the engineering world, they are not as likely to go down that route. I hope that we will address that aspect.

I hope that my noble friend Lord Low will soon speak to his amendment. On the responsibility for special educational needs, I entirely agree with him that there is an enormous need to start that process early—incidentally, that is true for practically all girls. It is interesting to note that the Equality and Human Rights Commission makes the point by stating that a quarter of children in primary school want to go on to higher education. Among girls, more than 80 per cent have that aspiration. If they have it already, at least it should be kept going by giving them examples of the many areas where their skills would be needed. There is clearly a role for governors here. They have a role to play in this already, so this is not providing a new one because it is all part of what needs to be made available to pupils. I am certain that parents in the local area would take that view.

One other area I want to stress is that of the role of the universities themselves. Many of them already send their students, voluntarily of course, particularly into schools where the aspiration among pupils to go on to higher education is not high. I am sure that the Government will be pleased to know that that sort of advice does not cost very much, but it is very good practice for the students themselves and helpful to the aspirations of the pupils.

[Baroness Wall of New Barnet]

I support most of the amendments in the group and I want to focus in particular on careers advice, on which many other noble Lords have already led. I agree totally with everyone who has spoken that unless careers advice is independent, it is very worrying. I hope that the Minister will consider whether Ofsted should include as part of its assessment of the effectiveness of a school how well it provides careers advice. It would not be an unusual process for Ofsted to get involved in. Although I agree with my noble friend Lord Peston that at the age of five you do not know what you are going to do, in this day and age people start taking an interest at a much younger age.

An area of concern has been raised by a number of employers who I have been talking to, along with a number of colleges. Recently I visited Newcastle College and North Lindsey College in Scunthorpe for Training 2000. What those colleges said was music to my ears. Although some careers advice is okay, a lot is obviously inadequate. But the principal at Newcastle College said that when she was a young girl—it was probably a while ago—no one had ever talked to her at school what it would mean if she went down a certain career path: how much would she earn and what would be her prospects going forward? Perhaps we have stayed away from those questions as well. For me, she made a telling point because, whether we like it or not, they are keen to know if they will have money to spend.

Through Semta I have been working with a careers adviser at BAE Systems, which has a programme in place in which representatives talk to young people about what it means to be an engineer and explain that it is not the dirty job that everyone thinks it is. There is a slide presentation to describe the earning potential at each stage of someone’s career progression. Some people might flinch at that, but in the real world of 2011-12, it is absolutely where young people are. It is the kind of information that is not always readily available. You can follow a pathway through looking at sector skills councils, but what is not often linked to it is the thought that, “If I work really hard and progress from this level to that level, what will that mean for me going forward in the sense of my future career?”.