“Often teachers don’t know what’s going on outside their door”

Jo Faragher

Careers advice for school children is patchy at best – it’s often left to teachers with little understanding of careers options to explain the world of work to the next workforce generation. Jo Faragher reports

If you take a look at the job profiles on Inspiring Futures – a website aimed at getting employers more involved in careers guidance in schools – the sheer range is staggering. Up until not too long ago, the range of careers available upon leaving school seemed somewhat limited, but now pupils can become anything from an addictions consultant to a technical evangelist, not to mention hundreds of potential jobs that don’t even exist yet.

Despite the growing complexity of the world of work, however, access to careers advice is patchy at best. The Education Act in 2011 introduced a statutory duty in schools to offer independent and impartial careers advice in years 9 to 11, taking that responsibility (and budget) away from local authorities. But in doing so, according to an inquiry launched in 2012 to see how schools were responding to their new duty, there has been a “worrying deterioration” in the level of provision.

According to David Andrews, an independent education consultant called upon in the inquiry, “the careers guidance a young person receives will depend largely on what his or her school chooses to make available and buy in”.

A recent survey by the CBI echoed these findings. Ninety-three per cent of 14 to 25-year-olds felt they were not getting enough careers guidance, and that more emphasis tended to be placed on ‘traditional’ or academic routes, rather than vocational qualifications. A fifth said they would like more information about different education pathways available after school, and 16% said they would like more talks from employers.  

And while employment levels are starting to rise, skills shortages in certain areas are getting worse, effectively creating a ‘double whammy’ where school pupils do not receive a broad education about the careers options available, while some employers simply can’t find enough candidates. Responding to a recent survey by the UK Commission for Employment and Skills that found 22% of all vacancies are unfilled due to lack of skills, Neil Carberry, director for employment and skills at the CBI, said: “To equip young people with the knowledge they need, there must also be a sea change in the quality of careers advice in schools, so they are more aware of the opportunities and rewards of working in key sectors which face skills shortages.”

For oil and gas, power and infrastructure recruiter NES Global Talent, this is a worrying trend. “Supply of oil and gas engineering talent is not meeting demand,” says Simon Coton, managing director. “There simply aren’t enough young people opting to study science, technology, engineering or mathematics, and there is a huge drive to change this.”

Coton says that employers in his sector need to “reach young people at an age when they are deciding about their future careers” on top of investing in entry-level training and graduate schemes.

As the CBI survey has highlighted, enabling pupils to have access to employers, ask questions and find out what working life is really like, can be infinitely more valuable than simply directing them to the deluge of careers information available online. Dr Deirdre Hughes, chair of the National Careers Council, has described navigating through the huge quantity of online careers information as “like drinking water from a fire hose”. And unfortunately, as the duty to provide careers advice now falls to schools, it will often be a teacher who takes on that advisory role, with little knowledge of the range of jobs or routes available and limited contact with ‘real-life’ employers.

“Often teachers don’t know what’s going on outside their door,” says Verity O’Keefe, employment and skills adviser at EEF, the manufacturers’ organisation. “For us, careers advice in schools should be a fundamental part of getting people into manufacturing, but pupils are simply not getting the specific careers advice they need.”

At the same time, she adds, employers are keener than ever to have contact with schools, but teachers are often unsure how to broker this relationship or are confused by the options available.

A report last September by schools inspectorate Ofsted found that, in the weakest schools, “teachers were often required to deliver careers advice in tutorials and assemblies but they had not had sufficient training or briefing on the range of career options available.”

To counteract the variable quality of careers guidance in schools, many employers are creating their own outreach programmes. Consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, for example, has just launched a new work experience programme for year 12 students so they can gain an insight into their working environment. At primary school level, there are programmes such as Primary Engineer encouraging younger pupils to start thinking about a career in engineering.  

The results of these programmes can be impressive. For example, Cogent, the sector skills council for chemicals, nuclear, oil and gas, led a programme to attract more female students into science-based careers through apprenticeships – partly through offering work experience and careers advice in schools. Positive perceptions of these careers have since improved to 83%, and 270 girls have requested a science-based work placement in the future.

Coton from NES Global Talent believes there should be more programmes like these. “The oil and gas industry must work closely with educational establishments and institutions to educate the younger generation about the amazing careers available,” he says.

“The sector provides a wealth of opportunities for global travel and with no end of complex technical challenges to solve, no two days are ever the same, and young people should be aware of that.” In manufacturing, O’Keefe from EEF says pupils often respond well to younger (particularly female) role models who can share their experiences and dispel any misconceptions people may have of the industry.

Furthermore, the more involvement with schools that employers and recruiters can generate themselves, the lesser the burden on teachers to know all there is to know about potential career options. “For employers, it’s a commitment to getting involved,” concludes O’Keefe. “Make that time and it may seem like a short-term cost, but the cost of not acquiring those skills in the future will be much greater.”