Education: Careers Advice

Lord Young of Norwood Green Excerpts

Tuesday 17th January 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Wilcox]

The National Careers Service is being put together to answer pretty well everything that the noble Lord, Lord Roberts of Llandudno, has just suggested. We know that the careers advice that has been given up until now has been very patchy, and neither parents nor children have understood what their choices are. We hope that the training and monitoring that we will do will make absolutely sure that schools will get the right advice for children in their area.

[Lord Young of Norwood Green]

My Lords, having visited a comprehensive school this morning and talked to the lower sixth form, never have I been more reminded of the importance of careers guidance when young people begin to make choices about further education and careers. Is the Minister worried about the comments by the president of the Institute of Career Guidance? He said:

“In reality, the National Careers Service is an illusion, and not a very imaginatively branded one either, and is a clear misrepresentation with regard to careers services for young people … The likely reality is that hundreds of thousands, and possibly millions, of young people will never get access to personalised impartial career guidance”—

I stress those words—

“having to rely on the national telephone helpline or website and school staff”.

I do not expect the Minister to agree with that, but I would expect her to assure the House that there will be a review of the current approach to careers guidance and to ensure that the right level of personalised careers guidance is available to young people.

[Baroness Wilcox]

We take this issue very seriously. We are putting new money towards it and ensuring that the youth contract will provide nearly 500,000 new opportunities for young people, including apprenticeships and work experience placements. The important thing as far as we are concerned, and our aim, is to get every unemployed young person earning or learning again. We do not think that careers advice has been good in the past and we think it can be improved upon. We are using the original Connexions system to help us to provide a better outcome than we have had thus far. With 1 million youngsters out of work, we know how important this is.