CEIAG & Careers Leaders
The way we are - Careers Education post Connexions
Wednesday 27th August 2014
Continuing the short series of blog posts looking back at the way careers education has changed over the last few years
In the week or so since the first part of my series there has been a number of articles both in blogs and in newspapers querying the need for GCSEs and once again various organisations voicing concerns over the work readiness of young people. So I thought I'd go with the 3 part blog series and concentrate on why we are in the present situation, leaving the future to the 3rd part. In my last blog I focussed on clarifying what I believe careers education actually is and I mentioned the demise of Connexions as a prime driver of the confused state of careers education currently.
So what did Connexions do?
Connexions provided support to schools in various ways
Each school had a careers adviser, that is a fully trained person, to post-graduate level. Who is an expert in counselling type skills, who has a deep and up to date knowledge of the job market and the majority of careers that are already in the workforce or becoming a possibility. These people know how to coach, inspire and support young people in making very complex decisions about their future. They are trained to be able to interpret data and assess the young people they see to judge if their dreams of becoming a brain surgeon are possible and to gently guide them to explore options if they are not.
They also kept schools up to date on legislation around careers education.
They also kept schools up to date on legislation around careers education.
They provided information for young people such as fact sheets, assemblies or group work activities
They often arranged visits, educational and occupational fairs and workshops
Many Connexions organisations did other things as well but these were the core. I should point out that there are still some Connexions organisations left in business but they now charge for their services where previously the services were provided free via the local authority. (They had started to charge academies prior to Connexions demise)
So what's going on now?
Many schools, 80% if Ofsted's figures are to be believed are no longer providing a satisfactory level of careers education for their pupils. There are some beacons of good practice around the country, Careers England highlights some. In general though most schools are at the mercy of a pick and mix of activities that may or may not have an unbiased agenda:-
- Voluntary employers/speakers who are willing to come in and 'do' something such as a workshop, mentoring, talk etc.
- Paid for speakers who specialise in various aspects of stuff such as aspiration building or university choice.
- Paid for computer based websites or programmes which offer methods of helping pupils to sift ideas, these are mainly unbiased.
- Free computer based websites & programmes which offer advice, though mainly with a bias of some sort such as recruiting for a particular type of occupation.
- University & College open/taster days
- Various different EBPs (Education Business partnerships) and LEPs (Local Enterprise Partnerships) have a range of support such as work experience or interview day organisation.
- Local initiatives which are supported by local authorities or organisations to support stuff in the local area such as Newham Sussed or Humber Employability Charter
- Nationwide initiatives such as Barclays Lifeskills, National Careers Week or National Citizen Service.
- Paid for services such as alumni networks, or consultancy services (such as mine) all add to the mix.
So the reality is that many schools now have a mish mash of activities that they call Careers Education. Ofsted calls for careers education to be impartial and to be part of a framework. Who is going to do that? Connexions used to. Who does it now? The hard pressed subject teacher? The senior leader? An admin assistant?
This article in the Huffington Post highlights my worries about impartiality and quality control. Those of us who work in and with schools on a regular basis know the primary drivers of improvement and change are the dual gods of Ofsted and league tables.
Ofsted, as I mentioned in my recent blog, have updated their inspection handbook to include more explicit expectations for careers education. However, there is a very healthy grapevine amongst the educational community and the wildly varying reports of just how much notice is paid to careers education during an Ofsted often leads headteachers to put careers lower down the priority list.
Currently league tables and performance indicators are mainly exam driven, but also, to a large extent, rely on the number of pupils who go to university, especially Russell Group universities. This results a very clear reason for schools to push as many people as possible towards the academic route, as evidenced by the Huffington Post article.
So clearly, careers education has come a long way from the days of Connexions, which, I must say, wasn't anywhere near perfect. Not all the changes have been positive and there is obviously a long way to go before things improve for the young people in our care.
There are a lot of people out there who do care about young people's prospects. One of them is Jonny Mitchel the memorable head of Thornhill Community Academy who wrote a piece in the Guardian last week which ended with these wise words.
I long for the day when performance tables can accurately incorporate the extent to which young people are ready for the challenges which lie ahead - gaining employment, raising a family, relationships, human interaction to name but a few. I suppose we can but hope. GCSE results, whatever they look like, are a start, though.
So do I Jonny, so do I.
In the final blog of this series I intend to look at the way forward for careers education.
