Education (Careers Guidance in Schools) Bill

Lia Nici Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 10th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Simon Baynes]

Absolutely. I could not agree more, and one of the hugely beneficial aspects of careers guidance and education, in preparing pupils at secondary school for further education and the working world beyond, is the much greater emphasis on apprenticeships. I am particularly proud of the UK Government’s involvement and all the apprenticeships they have introduced, but it is a key part of the private sector, too.

I have spent quite a lot of time over the past five years going to careers fairs with my two daughters, and I noticed even in that five-year period a significant change in the emphasis from the academic and traditional routes to the more technical routes. The apprenticeship system enables those routes to become a reality so that we are now seeing young people who, rather than going to university, are perhaps taking a course with an accountancy firm or a legal firm. They do a combination of apprenticeship training in that particular profession and practical work, which is a very attractive route.

[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

I completely and utterly concur with my hon. Friend. Does he agree that the brand of degrees and undergraduate programmes now needs to step up to what we are doing with apprenticeships, career apprenticeships and traineeships because, actually, a person can study to level 2, level 3, level 4 and all the way through to degree apprenticeships, earning while they learn, and not have to gather lots of student loans that will stay with them for a very long time?

[Simon Baynes]

I could not agree more. I strongly feel that this is a hugely beneficial improvement to the education and careers system. For too long, there has been a stratified, structured approach in which only the academic route at universities really matters. My older daughter is studying a vocational course at university, which is fantastic and is to be strongly supported. My hon. Friend’s point is made with passion and great accuracy, and I hope we can develop more of it within the education system.

There is also a point to be made about how the universities are currently approaching education. I strongly hope they will go back to face-to-face teaching, because it is simply not right that teaching should continue virtually while, for instance, we meet in physical form here in the House of Commons.

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[Peter Kyle]

Only on Wednesday I had a conversation with the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Jonathan Gullis) about his Bill, for which he, too, is an enthusiastic salesperson. The Opposition are certainly open-minded to that suggestion. I have already met the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North and will stay in touch with him, and he has met the shadow Secretary of State for Education, my hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), to talk about his Bill. I am happy to meet the hon. Member for North West Durham (Mr Holden) as well—in fact, I would do so enthusiastically—to talk about not only the issue at hand but others, too, because there are more shared beliefs about the way forward to tackle the core education challenges than is sometimes apparent in the heat of debate, even though we diverge on specific things when it comes to their application in practice.

The Bill before us will go some way towards tackling the challenge of fragmentation and the ways that some schools deliver careers development in different ways. We welcome any moves towards the embedding of high-quality careers education throughout all state schools equally. Such education is a vital way to expose children to options for work that are alternatives to those that surround them as they grow up.

Careers & Enterprise Company research found that 73% of children who receive careers education feel more aware of different careers and 69% have a better understanding of what they need to do to achieve their ambitions. Under this Government, though, far too many children are missing out. According to that research, only 30% of schools and colleges have a stable careers programme, meaning that thousands of kids are missing out.

The expansion of an existing legal duty to cover all schools is welcome—it is common sense—but a more fundamental challenge needs to be addressed. We must ensure that schools have the capacity and expertise to make careers education a true priority. Cuts to school budgets have had a real effect on school leaders’ ability to prioritise careers. The Institute for Fiscal Studies recently found that despite Tory promises to level up spending, per-pupil funding will not return to pre-2010 levels by the end of this Parliament.

When spending is squeezed, it is natural that schools prioritise subjects such as English, maths and science, and topics like careers are so often left behind. Indeed, when one speaks to the academies that do not prioritise careers, often the reason cited is that they simply do not have the resources to do everything.

[Lia Nici]

The hon. Gentleman talks about funding, but I worked in education for 22 years prior to coming to this place and I have seen the effects of the huge amount of funding that the Labour Government put into education. It did nothing whatsoever to improve education; in fact, it decimated the good work that was happening, because although funding is important, it is more important to get funding in the right places for the right reasons. More funding is not always needed; it is about getting funding in the right places to do the right thing for the students, not the staff.

[Peter Kyle]

I do not think this is the debate in which we should go down that path—[Interruption.] Well, I am happy to compare the two records. We are entering an era in which the school day is reducing at a time when there should be more experience. Just this morning I heard a message from a parent who had been contacted by the school to tell him that the school day was being reduced, to finish at 2.55 in the afternoon, because of the lack of resources to allow teachers to go through the day and to do all the prep work that they need to do. For one day a week, the school day is being reduced for a further half hour: each Tuesday is called a compression day—

[Lia Nici]

rose—

[Peter Kyle]

Let me finish the point; the hon. Lady cannot intervene on a response when it was her own intervention in the first place—I know that enthusiasm is rewarded in this place, but one must not get ahead of oneself. It is not possible to make the argument that there is no link between investment and outcomes in education. We will have plenty of opportunities to debate the comparable records of both approaches.

Groups such as the Careers & Enterprise Company do excellent work, but they need attention and effort from a school careers lead, too. With funding squeezed and super-sized classes on the rise—my hon. Friend the Member for Ilford North (Wes Streeting) released data to the House in recent days showing that 70% of students are now in class sizes that are rising above 30—the job has been made more difficult. It is welcome that the Government are beginning to acknowledge the importance of career development. However, with Ofsted characterising provision as a mixed picture, there is much more to do. This Bill is an important step, but it is a first step. The Government need to follow Labour’s lead in putting careers education at the heart of its school programme, and we will be working with them to make sure that they do.

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[Lia Nici (Great Grimsby) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mark Jenkinson) on bringing this Bill forward. It is utterly vital that all secondary schools and academies have an expectation of being able to offer good quality, independent careers advice from year 7 all the way through to year 13. Having worked in education for 22 years, I know that it is not just about jobs, but about careers. We need to make sure that our young people, and our slightly older people, understand the opportunities that are out there. When we talk about careers, though, one thing we do not talk about is transferable skills. I met a young man last Friday who had a level 3 qualification in mechanical engineering, and he really did not understand how valuable his qualification was in the marketplace and how sought after he was. He was extremely excited and pleased to hear that that was what he had in his back pocket. We must make sure that all of our young people, especially those from deprived backgrounds, have such qualifications.

What I would like to say to all those independent career advisers is that the quality and the relevance of what they are offering is absolutely vital. Young people have no idea what old fogies like us, who have been in the work market for a very long time, are talking about. Members who are old enough to remember Snoopy might recall the teacher who went, “Bwa-bwa-bwaa-bwa”. That is how young people hear old fogies like us. I am afraid that anybody over the age of 23 is quite often not listened to.

What I am doing in the constituency of Great Grimsby is making sure that we have not only people with long-standing and impressive careers, but people who are just starting off on their journeys. My plea to careers advisers, schools and academies is to remember that for people to do well in school and to want to do well in school, they need to understand not only the relevance of what they are doing, but that careers and jobs are about having fun in life. What a miserable existence it would be for a person to have to go to work day after day and not enjoy the people with whom they work or the job that they are doing. People also need to understand that a career is about going to different places. Sometimes we do a job because we know that it will get us somewhere else, so an understanding of the journey that people take is important.

I have a core request to those involved in careers. We cannot expect our teachers to do it, as they are specialists in education, not specialists in careers. Employers, councils and careers advisers all need to work together with our local businesses to make people excited about what is happening in their areas. What levelling up is doing at the moment in places such as Great Grimsby is bringing more inward investment into the constituency than has ever been seen before. There are exciting jobs and careers available. We get to know that because we are in privileged positions, but we need to make sure that we say to our colleagues locally and to our schools and academies that there are some really exciting things coming along. There will also be jobs in new technology that have not been invented yet.

I wholeheartedly support this Bill. We need careers guidance, with several touch points from year 7 onwards, and we need it to be fun and relevant, because when it is fun people will really understand what they enjoy and what their future can look like.