Careers Education for Students

Debate between Lord Storey and Baroness Stedman-Scott

Thursday 6th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Storey (LD)]

My Lords, I start by declaring my interest as a patron of Careers Connect and a vice-president of the Local Government Association. I thank all those people who have sent briefings, particularly Gateshead College. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, for securing this important debate. He said he was looking forward to hearing the experiences of Members of this Chamber. I think we all have experiences in careers. All of us had to apply for a job at some stage, and we know the pitfalls that that entails. We also have children, and we want them to get good jobs and have a career. Actually, although we talk about careers, most young people talk about a job. They do not talk about careers any more, and maybe we need to reflect on that.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Bottomley, I am optimistic. The careers strategy is probably one of the best I have ever seen for developing careers education in schools. I went to the All-Party Group on Education, where the Minister talked about the strategy. I was impressed that she had a real understanding and grasp of what needed to be done. On every single question, she was very positive and committed.

Having said all that, it is not just about having a strategy, as good as that strategy is. It has to be about changing our mindset. What do I mean by that? My experience of careers education was: “Here’s a cupboard full of university prospectuses. Go and choose which university you want to go to”. Perhaps schools these days think that we ought to have a member of staff responsible for careers education. But who do they give that job to? Invariably, it goes to the person with the shortest timetable and who has spare time—it might be the French teacher or the PE teacher. Here, I must declare an interest. My wife was a PE teacher and she drew the short straw. She had no training and no experience; it was just, “Could you do careers advice, please, Mrs Storey?” That is no way to develop careers education in a school.

The other problem is this: head teachers want their pupils to go into the sixth form. The number of pupils in the sixth form is seen as a mark of the success of the school. Why? Because every pupil who goes into the sixth form comes tagged with a sum of money—the more pupils in the sixth form, the more the budget is. Actually, for the majority of pupils in many schools, going into the sixth form is not the answer. Probably, a vocational course is the answer—and God forbid that they should go to a further education college. It is very important that we change that mindset.

We have to realise that careers education is not just about strategies and changing the mindset. Sadly, it also has to be about resources. In the cuts of 2010 and 2011, we gave responsibility for careers education to schools but took out of the budget £196 million. Those resources have not reappeared in schools.

In opening—that was my opening—I also look forward to hearing the contribution from the noble Baroness, Lady Bull. I am sure it will be uplifting.

The word I want to use is “students”, although I would prefer the term “every student”. Every young boy and girl begins to dream of what they would like to be when they grow up. At a young age, they also begin to form an opinion of what they do not want to do. That is why careers education, in its broadest sense, should begin in primary schools, and it is easy for primary schools to do this.

When I was a primary school teacher, we invited parents from a whole range of professions to come and talk to the children. We used a carousel or speed-dating system, and, suddenly, the children’s perception of the world of work changed. We are not allowed to show things in the Chamber, and quite rightly so, but a wonderful careers game has been developed by a not-for-profit company in Milton Keynes. Do noble Lords know the game of Top Trumps? Well, this version is on careers. Children can look at every career and at how much you earn, what training is needed and how you go about the job. You can see primary school children in the playground playing Top Trumps Jobs—it really works.

People should also be given the opportunity at a young age to go and visit a factory floor or an office and talk to people there. You learn more—the sponge is readier—when you are nine or 10 than when you are 14 or 15. That is hugely important. Also at an early stage, children need to know what is possible and equally what is not. Playing for Liverpool in the premiership or in the Women’s Super League is not a realistic ambition for 99.9% of schoolchildren, nor is being on “Big Brother” or “Love Island”, thank goodness. They need to know about the range of jobs that they can aspire to—one far greater than when any of us was thinking about our future.

This is where every child matters. Although secondary schools have a statutory duty to provide independent careers advice, evidence points to the fact that both the amount of careers advice and the quality of it is not good in all schools. Five years ago Ofsted’s inspection of careers education found that only one in five schools was providing adequate careers advice. This is due to budget constraints to some extent but it is also perhaps about school indifference. Parents who can afford it—and I guess that is many of us here—make sacrifices to do what is best for their children. There is no shortage of independent careers advice available: you just need to search the internet. In addition to paying for one-to-one advice, for an additional fee the adviser will help to write your CV. For the sixth-formers, they will give one-to-one careers advice and guidance—this is often a critical factor in raising the ambitions of young people.

Why is careers advice so vital? It is democratising and promotes social mobility. Good, impartial, student-centred careers advice has the potential to be transformational, offering people the chance to realise their potential whatever their background and attributes. Good careers advice often makes the biggest difference to students who might otherwise not get it. A good careers adviser can equip a young person with the right information to take the best decisions in their own interests. At a vital time in children’s development, good careers advice should inform, motivate and inspire the next generation. Professional input is vital because some students do not have the support of parents or their parents may be out of touch with the modern world of education or work opportunities. Parents who went to university may have an unconscious prejudice about the relative merits of technical routes and a suspicion about what they may see as inferior options. Parents who have never worked will have no first-hand knowledge of the world of work or the range of careers available.

Finally, we are all familiar with government rhetoric about social mobility and the burning injustices that prevent young people reaching for the stars. We also know that these fine words have not buttered a single parsnip. It is now much less likely that a girl or boy from a working-class background will become a lawyer or an accountant—two examples where jobs are principally available to sons and daughters of partners in those firms. As a primary teacher I followed the careers of my pupils with interest. Although it was a working-class area, I can count lawyers, nuclear physicists, doctors, teachers and even an actor among the children I taught. High-quality careers advice was crucial in helping them reach their goals. I am grateful for this debate and I hope we learn from everything we hear.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

Can I ask noble Lords to stick to their time as we have people who want to speak in the gap? If they could, that would be helpful.