Outstanding Careers | Careers Education Consultant | Ofsted Inspection Careers

Government response to the Education committee recommendations for CEIAG Pt 1

Monday 25th September 2023

A few days ago, the Government published it's response to the Education Committee's report into Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG).

There were 27 recommendations made in the report. The Government have responded to all of them and have broken them down into 6 different areas.
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• The system of CEIAG
• Organisations delivering CEIAG
• CEIAG in primary schools
• Embedding careers in the curriculum
• Connecting employers with schools
• Cultivating optimism and hope - Improving CEIAG provision for specific groups of pupils

Given that most careers leaders don't have time to read 38 lines, much less 38 pages, I've decided to work on a set of mini blogs which summarise the main points. I'll be taking them section by section over the next week or so, so keep an eye out for further info.

The first 13 pages of the report summarise the Government's priorities and things they think they've done well.

It goes on to speak about how it has commissioned two pieces of research, Sir John Holman's report into the future of the careers system and the Ofsted thematic review. Both of these are referenced in responses to recommendations.

There is a very clear signal of where the Government is heading on careers on page 6...

• A single all age careers service
• Parity of esteem between technical and academic routes and
• Social justice, everyone being able to "make the most of their talents"

So, moving on to the responses to the recommendations...

The system of CEIAG

• Yes, we're going to look at the Holman report and the Ofsted thematic survey and publish a new strategy in 2024.
• No we're not going to set numerical targets for Gatsby Benchmarks as that may encourage a tick box culture
• The Government's view is that accountability through Ofsted and data on outcomes for young people are good barometers of progress.
• We'll be looking at destinations to tell us how well careers provision is performing.

• We've strengthened the way Ofsted inspects careers - it now impacts most main areas of judgement
• If a school is not meeting minimum standards it must be stated in the Ofsted report
• We will use the results of the Ofsted thematic survey to assess the strengths and weaknesses of CEIAG and use this to shape further inspection processes.
• We will set out the Department's next steps on quality and accountability in the Strategic Action Plan for Careers.

• We're working on high quality digital support.
• 90% of schools and colleges already self assess using a compass tool. The Gatsby Benchmarks are not an accountability framework so we won't be mandating use of Compass or Compass+. We do think it's a good idea to use a Compass self assessment at least once a year and will be recomending that in future statutory guidance.

I'm not using these blogs to comment on the rights and wrongs of these responses, though I'll be very happy to hear your views. Look out for the next section tomorrow.

Of course, if you can't wait and you'd like to read the entire report you can do so here