Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that people leaving sixth form are fully aware of all further education options open to them.

We are taking a number of steps to ensure that the full range of education and training options are widely understood by young people. Schools are legally required to secure independent careers guidance for pupils up to the age of 18. This must include information on the full range of education and training options, including apprenticeships.

Destination measures are a key tool to assess how well schools and colleges prepare their students to make a successful transition into the next stage of education or training, or employment. The key stage 5 measure looks at activity in the year after the young person took A level or other level 3 qualifications. Destination measures will be one of the headline performance measures in the 2016 performance tables if the data are robust enough. They are taken into account by Ofsted during school inspections.

However, the range of information that young people receive remains too narrow and we want to ensure that young people hear much more consistently about the merits of alternatives to academic routes and are aware of all the routes to higher skills and into the workplace. The government intends to bring forward legislation at the earliest opportunity that will require schools to allow other education and training providers the opportunity to talk to students about their offer on school premises.