Schools: Careers Advice

Lord Cormack Excerpts

Monday 20th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Nash]

The noble Baroness is right—there is an inherent conflict in this. Schools have a clear responsibility to ensure that their pupils achieve and progress to positive destinations, whether that is university or another, high-calibre, vocational route. Our revised guidance clearly states that schools should act impartially and recognise that some students would be better suited to educational training beyond schools, and it makes it clear that schools should give other providers the opportunity to inform pupils about the offer. We believe that our new destination measures will also help considerably in that area.

[Lord Cormack (Con)]

My Lords, may I once again urge my noble friend to contact all secondary schools and encourage them to appoint a careers advisory panel drawn from local businessmen and professionals who really know about jobs and careers?

[Lord Nash]

My noble friend has raised this before and I think it is an excellent idea. In fact all schools should have at least one person focused on the careers function. I know that a number of schools do this and we are considering encouraging more of them to do so.