Careers Advice (14 to 19-Year-Olds)

Debate between Heather Wheeler and David Ward

Wednesday 25th February 2015 Westminster Hall

[Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Williams. I congratulate my coalition colleague the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) on securing the debate.

The report by the Association of Colleges and the statistics that it has published are interesting. During the past four and three quarter years working in South Derbyshire, I have made it a key priority to put businesses together with schools and the further education college. That was helped by the fact that I opened our further education college—until 2011, we did not have one, but we now have a good working relationship. I have also integrated the needs of businesses with future opportunities for young people by setting up a business breakfast club. I have teachers, heads and representatives from the colleges coming to my business breakfast club, because I want them to learn about what business wants pupils to learn at their schools, so that those pupils are—a phrase that I often use—oven-ready for work. That, apparently, is a novel concept. I cannot imagine why, because we had careers advice when I was at Grey Coat Hospital school, although it was not suggested that I become an MP. Fortunately, other people have sensibly suggested that their children should go there.

Many things are possible for the future. In my patch in South Derbyshire, where we have so much manufacturing, the importance of science, technology, engineering and maths links in terribly well with my manufacturing companies. They want to get involved with schools, because they want to urge them to encourage their pupils, particularly the girls, to take up those subjects and make those decisions early on at the age of 14 or 15, or 16 to 18. The whole mixture displays a can-do attitude.

I am disappointed by the statistics from the AOC. I understand why it felt that it needed to do that survey, because it highlights where we can do better. I have always tried to ensure that in the sunny uplands of South Derbyshire, we are not only a can-do area but a can-do-better area. When, for example, I get the Institute of Physics to give a presentation in schools, I do not encourage them simply to aim it at 17 to 18-year-olds, because they have more or less made their decisions about where they want to go; I try to aim such presentations at 14 and 15-year-olds, because I think that that is the key.

William Allitt school, which is in my constituency and which does not have a sixth form, is a finalist in the national science and engineering competition at the big bang fair, a massive engineering exhibition that goes on for three days in the national exhibition centre in Birmingham. It is tremendous that the school has become specialist in maths. It has sent kids over to Russia for a two-week space course. I think it is absolutely brilliant that kids in my area have such opportunities, and that they are truly reaching for the stars.

I finish by saying that careers advice is incredibly important. The announcement made by the Education Secretary in December gives us hope that there will be real changes and that careers advice will be improved. I congratulate my coalition colleague the hon. Member for Eastbourne on coming up with the brilliant idea that we need to have gold stars for careers advisers. People need careers advisers to give them the advice that enables them to say, “I could be a nurse or I could be a bank manager, but I actually want to be an engineer.”

[Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)]

The hon. Lady has outlined some excellent best practice in schools. She mentioned “can do” and “can do better”, but the difficulty is whether schools want to do those things, as they clearly do in the case of her schools, rather than having to do them. The problem is schools not having to do those things when it comes to the assessment of their own performance.

[Heather Wheeler]

That is an incredibly important point. As has been mentioned, it is hardly surprising that teachers give recommendations to their pupils about going to university, because that is the route that those teachers came through. However, there are many young people who really want to go into apprenticeships. An interesting apprenticeship that has absolutely taken off is the accountancy apprenticeship, which is almost like going back to the old days of articled clerks. That is, in effect, what I did. I studied for my professional exams as an insurance broker through day release and evening classes. It was a great career. I spent 10 years in the City and thoroughly enjoyed it, living by the important moral principles of “My word is my bond” and “You don’t lie to people”. If someone can take those principles on to elsewhere in their career, that is great. Teachers perhaps are not the best people to provide such advice, but I applaud the initiatives that my schools are taking to talk to businesses and take on this new, über power-charged careers service for the future.