Collective leadership for high-quality careers support

Author Archives: Keith Herrmann


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CSSA Briefing Note 13A

Employers say partnership working the only way to get careers guidance in schools and colleges right

BN13A CoverA joint statement by the Careers Alliance is published today with the support of a wide range of employers and sector bodies, including Atkins, Capgemini, Deloitte, National Grid, Siemens, Wates, the ACCA, the Bar Council, the Chartered Management Institute, the ICAEW, the Royal Academy of Engineering, the Federation for Industry Sector Skills & Standards, Creative & Cultural Skills, and the Recruitment and Employment Confederation amongst many others.

It calls for collaborative action between professional careers advisers, employers and schools and colleges in providing careers advice and guidance to young people by:

  1. Highlighting the importance of careers education and guidance in schools and colleges.
  2. Framing employer contributions as part of professionally managed careers programmes and not as ad hoc initiatives.
  3. Affirming that, working together within a planned careers programme, employers and career professionals can provide far more effective help to young people than either could do on their own.

Employers, professional bodies and Sector Skills Councils have challenged Government policies by supporting the Careers Alliance statement. This contrasts with the Government’s latest Statutory Guidance to schools which has emphasised contributions from employers and people in jobs to inspire and motivate young people in schools and colleges about the world of work, but makes little reference to the role of careers advisers, nor explains how such links between employers and schools and colleges can best be brokered.

Getting the balance right beyond inspiration
Commenting on the campaign, Dame Ruth Silver, Chair of the Careers Alliance, said: ‘There remains a disconnect between education and the world of work. Our joint call with employers shows that collaborative action is the best solution; employers say they can’t do it all on their own. Employers endorse this call by the Careers Alliance for partnership working to get careers guidance in schools and colleges right.’

Professor Tony Watts, a leading international expert on career guidance said: ‘If employer contributions are to be effective, they require logistical support, curriculum space, and receptive schools and young people. They also need to be an integral part of well-planned careers programmes.’

Commenting on the Careers Alliance statement, Dr Tessa Stone, CEO of Brightside and Chair of the Bridge Group, said: ‘The employers we work with are actively engaged in working with schools and colleges. They value the role of professional careers advisers in managing careers education and guidance programmes within schools which incorporate and support the contributions of employers and people at work, so enhancing their value and ensuring their effectiveness.’

The Careers Alliance report concludes that employers (and people at work) and careers advisers both have distinctive and complementary contributions to make to the career development and career planning of young people. Working together, within a planned programme of careers education and guidance, they can provide far more effective help to young people than either could do on their own.

CSSA BN13A Employer Support for CSSA Statement


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Still time to book to attend the Careers 50/50 conference

Excellent opportunity to celebrate 50 years of world-leading careers research, innovation and support.

Adventures in Career Development

There are still places available to book onto the Careers 50/50 conference.

On 14 -15 July, CRAC, is celebrating its 50th anniversary by hosting a major careers event in partnership with NICEC (the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling) www.crac.org.uk/5050. The event will celebrate the work undertaken by CRAC, Vitae and Professor Tony Watts, co-founder of CRAC and Director of NICEC,1975-2001 over the last 50 years.

CRAC was set up in 1964 to improve the quality of careers work and career support in schools and to act as a link between the worlds of education and of work. NICEC was for many years a research and development organisation supported by CRAC ran its first project supporting transitions of doctoral researchers to industry in 1968. Over the last 50 years, CRAC has led a wide-ranging set of innovations in connecting students, researchers and employers, careers information and learning.

The celebratory event will reflect on the…

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Free copies: Evaluating the impact of career management skills module and internship programme within a university business school

Adventures in Career Development

I’ve recently published an article entitle Evaluating the impact of career management skills module and internship programme within a university business school in the British Journal of Guidance and Counselling.

I’m able to give away 50 free views of the article. So if you don’t work in a university and would like to engage with our research follow the link to pick up your free copy. First come, first served

I want my free copy of “Evaluating the impact of career management skills programme”

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CSSA Press statement: Partnerships to get careers guidance working

PRESS RELEASE
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

26 February 2014

Partnerships needed to get careers guidance in schools and colleges
working

More than ‘inspiration’ needed
Following the recent Ofsted report on careers guidance in schools which found that ‘…links with employers were the weakest aspect of career guidance in the 60 schools visited’, this new report from the Careers Alliance highlights the importance of collaboration between professional careers advisers, employers and schools and colleges in providing careers advice and guidance to young people.

This call for collaborative action is made by the Careers Alliance, which is made up of more than twenty of the country’s largest skills and education organisations.

It comes at a time when the Government’s recent Inspiration Vision Statement alongside its Careers Guidance Action Plan have placed emphasis on contributions from employers and people in jobs to inspire and motivate young people in schools and colleges about the world of work, but make little reference to the role of careers advisers, nor explain how such links between employers and schools and colleges can best be brokered.

More is needed than ‘inspiring young people’. Careers Alliance Convenor, Keith Herrmann, said: ‘Young people in schools and colleges need professional support to help them make informed choices about subjects to study, qualification pathways and routes into employment. Professional careers advisers have a crucial role in working with schools and employers to provide brokerage, manage careers programmes and provide professional career guidance.’

The Careers Alliance paper notes that Government policy statements have set up an unhelpful dichotomy between the career support provided by careers advisers and the career learning opportunities that are provided by interactions with employers. In contrast, the report explains how the roles of employers and professional careers advisers are distinctive and complementary.

Ongoing disconnect between employers and schools
Commenting on the report, Dame Ruth Silver, Chair of the Careers Alliance, said: ‘There remains a disconnect between education and the world of work. But it is unhelpful for Ministers to suggest that employers can do it all. We ask employer bodies to endorse this call by the Careers Alliance for partnership working to get careers guidance in schools and colleges right.’

Sorting out career guidance in schools and colleges is clearly an urgent issue. Tony Moloney, Head of UK Education & Skills at National Grid, said: ‘Employers and working people can help young people by providing information, inspiration and advice about the world of work. Employers can provide work placements, visits, inspiring talks and can help with CV writing workshops, mock interviews and enterprise programmes.’

Getting the balance right
Professor Tony Watts, a leading international expert on career guidance and CSSA adviser, said: ‘If employer contributions are to be effective, they require logistical support, curriculum space, and receptive schools and young people. They also need to be an integral part of well-planned careers programmes.’

Commenting on the report, Dr Tessa Stone, CEO of Brightside and Chair of the Bridge Group, said: ‘We welcome this report from the Careers Alliance as it clearly spells out the distinctive contributions of employers and careers advisers. The employers we work with are actively engaged in working with schools and colleges. They value the role of professional careers advisers in managing careers education and guidance programmes within schools which incorporate and support the contributions of employers and people at work, so enhancing their value and ensuring their effectiveness.’

The Careers Alliance report concludes that employers (and people at work) and careers advisers both have distinctive and complementary contributions to make to the career development and career planning of young people. Working together, within a planned programme of careers education and guidance, they can provide far more effective help to young people than either could do on their own.

Context
Leading UK employers, unions, and skills and education providers are calling for more collaboration between schools, employers and careers advisers to give better careers advice to young people. Too often, young people are bombarded by a hoard of information online and from employers, from their peers and from their school or college.

Teachers can’t be expected to do it alone, nor should employers be expected to shoulder the sole responsibility. Employers working with schools are crucial to providing opportunities for students to see what working life is like. Professional careers advisers need to work with schools and employers to help young people learn about their options, such as apprenticeships and work experience.

The Government has said a lot about careers advice lately. Stubbornly high youth unemployment at around 1 million continues to be a problem despite numerous Government schemes. A call by the British Chambers of Commerce for the Chancellor, George Osborne, to put young people at the heart of the next budget highlights the importance of getting young people into work.

Besides improving youth employment, preparing young people for the world of work is crucial. The findings of a City & Guilds survey of 1,000 employers shows that almost 80% of employers think work experience is essential to ensuring young people are ready for work, yet 60% of employers remain uncertain on how to deliver the most effective work experience placements and would welcome guidelines and support.

The Careers Alliance welcomes the recently launched UKCES and CIPD employer guides on making work experience work for young people and employers. These reports offer practical advice to employers about offering high-quality work experience and encourage more employers to get involved. Work experience opportunities can help young people learn about the world of work, open their eyes to the range and variety of career opportunities open to them, and connect their learning at school or college to the world of work.

For more information or interviews, please contact:
Keith Herrmann
Convenor, Careers Sector Stakeholders Alliance
T: 079 00 697 544
E: kherrmann@me.com

– Ends –

CSSA Briefing Note 13 available at:

https://careersalliance.wordpress.com/2014/02/23/cssa-briefing-note-13/


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CSSA Briefing Note 13

BN13 CoverThe Roles of Employers and Career Professionals in Providing Career Support to Young People in Schools and Colleges

The Careers Alliance has previously called for more employer engagement in careers education and work-related learning in schools and colleges, and has emphasised the importance of improved co-ordination between employers, professional careers advisers and schools/colleges.

The Education Select Committee welcomed ‘the Government’s support for the increased involvement of local employers in careers guidance in schools, which is vital for effective careers provision’. It added: ‘We recommend that schools be required to set out in their careers plans their arrangements with local employers and how they intend to enhance them.’

Yet Ofsted found that ‘[l]inks with employers were the weakest aspect of career guidance in the 60 schools visited. About two thirds of the schools reported that they had cut down on their work experience provision… for budgetary reasons and because of the recommendation in the Wolf report.’

Besides improving youth employment, preparing young people for the world of work is crucial. Yet the findings of a City & Guilds survey of 1,000 employers shows that almost 80% of employers think work experience is essential to ensuring young people are ready for work, yet 60% of employers remain uncertain on how to deliver the most effective work experience placements and would welcome guidelines and support.

The Careers Alliance welcomes the recently launched UKCES and CIPD employer guides on making work experience work for young people and employers. These reports offer practical advice to employers about offering high-quality work experience and encourage more employers to get involved. Work experience opportunities can help young people learn about the world of work, open their eyes to the range and variety of career opportunities open to them, and connect their learning at school or college to the world of work.

More than ‘inspiration’ needed

However, more is needed than ‘inspiring young people’. Young people in schools and colleges need professional support to help them make informed choices about subjects to study, qualification pathways and routes into employment. Professional careers advisers have a crucial role in working with schools and employers to provide brokerage, manage careers programmes and provide professional career guidance.

The Careers Alliance paper explains how the roles of employers and professional careers advisers are distinctive and complementary when Government policy statements have set up an unhelpful dichotomy between the career support provided by careers advisers and the career learning opportunities that are provided by interactions with employers.

Briefing Note 13 Role of Employers & Career Professionals in CEIAG


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CSSA Briefing Note 12

National Careers Service: Strategic Options for Building a World Class Service

BN12 CoverThe National Careers Service (NCS) was launched in April 2012, tasked with supporting and enabling the career choices of citizens in England. The NCS replaced Next Step, the former careers service for adults. The new Service has three channels (face-to-face, phone and web). Early announcements indicated that it was to be an all-age service. But at present for young people it has only a limited helpline and web service, with no local face-to-face provision (NCS providers can provide such services to young people, but not as the NCS).

The Careers Alliance and its member organisations welcome and support the NCS. We wish to play our part in helping the Service to develop and become more successful in assisting people in their lifelong learning and work pathways. This paper has been prepared in this spirit. We suggest that this paper be addressed by the National Careers Council and that the Skills Funding Agency and the Department for Business Innovation and Skills be invited to make a formal response to the issues outlined here. In particular, we recommend that the NCC should examine in-depth the feasibility and desirability of the strategic longer-term issues set out in Section 6 of this paper, leading to a public statement from the Government about the future vision and strategy for the NCS.

Thus the NCS has the potential to be not only a private good for its clients but also a public good, with its benefits being felt beyond its immediate client group. Looking ahead to the next stages of its development, the role of, and challenge for, the Service must be to balance the needs and interests (short- and longer term) of the individual with wider social and economic priorities. While there are inevitably requirements, in tight times for the public purse, to prioritise NCS services, it remains important that a universal Service exists to support the careers not only of those who are unemployed but also of those whose lives are changing (or could fruitfully change) in other ways.

Briefing Note 12 NCS Strategic Options


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CSSA Briefing Note 11

Submission to Education Select Committee Enquiry on Career Guidance

BN11 CoverThis Briefing Note from the CSSA responds to the concerns outlined by the Education Select Committee, but also outlines some of the strategic challenges facing the careers sector, given that there are one million young people not in employment, education or training (NEETs), and growing numbers of graduates are finding it more difficult to get work. Despite the efforts to reduce youth unemployment, concerns remain for the next generation of young people that will face extremely tough choices, not just at school in terms of their subject choices and further study choices, but also their career choices at a time when opportunities for work are limited and the medium-term projections for the economy are for stagnant growth and low levels of job creation.

There is much to support: the Government has issued a ‘practical guide for schools’2 alongside its statutory guidance to schools3; it has established the National Careers Service4 (albeit its face-to-face services are for adults only); it has created a National Careers Council5 to provide oversight for the NCS and to provide advice to government on careers services more generally; it has promoted the Matrix Standard; it has supported the Careers Profession Alliance in establishing a single professional body for careers advisers, to be called the Career Development Institute; and it has supported Careers England in developing the Quality in Careers Standard. But concerns remain about how career guidance provision for young people in schools and colleges will be funded, how quality in provision will be assured, and how schools will be supported to meet their statutory responsibilities.

We risk a postcode lottery

Preparations by schools for the new statutory duty need to be viewed in a broader context. There are concerns from head teacher bodies9 that careers education programmes within schools are being weakened. The current statutory duty to provide careers education within the curriculum has been removed; funding for programmes like Aimhigher and Education Business Partnerships has been discontinued; and work experience and work-related learning pre-16 seem likely to become much less common now that the requirement for schools to offer these opportunities has been withdrawn. There is a very significant risk of inconsistent careers provision across England, with school students suffering from a ‘post-code lottery’ in relation to what they are likely to receive, depending on the resources and priorities of their particular school.

Briefing Note 11 Submission to Education Select Committee


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CSSA Thinkpiece 2

High-quality Career Guidance for Enhancing Social Mobility:
a submission to the Milburn Review of Social Mobility and Child Poverty

Thinkpiece2 CoverThe Coalition Government’s strategy on social mobility recognises the value and contribution of careers education and guidance. Aside from a role for government, it states that “we can all make a difference to raising aspirations and helping people to make informed choices about jobs and careers”.

This submission sets out our concerns about the role of careers education, information, advice and guidance in improving social mobility. It summarises the key issues facing the careers sector in England, the role of careers professionals in helping people make informed choices, and the impact this has on the pathways and routes that are open to them. Social mobility needs to translate into opportunities for young people and adults, and resonates with the need to invest in technical and higher-level skills and to ensure pathways for lifelong learning and enhanced career adaptability8. For the purposes of brevity, however, the note focuses mainly on interventions for young people.

Thinkpiece 2 Social Mobility and CEIAG


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CSSA Briefing Note 9

Careers Provision in the Education Bill: key outstanding issues

BN9 CoverThis Briefing Note outlines some of the concerns with the drafting of the then Education Bill. It was then clear that the main elements of Government policies in relation to careers provision were unlikely to change. Within this framework, however, the members of the Careers Alliance urged that attention be paid to four key outstanding issues, in order to maximise the potential benefits of the policies set out in the Bill and minimise their risks:

  • proper guidance to schools;
  • quality assured provision;
  • breaches of the statutory duty;
  • extending the BCS remit to NEETs.

“The government should act urgently to guarantee face-to-face careers advice for all young people in schools”.

Recommendation to the Coalition Government from Simon Hughes, the Government Advocate for Access to Education in his report to the Prime Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, July 2011

Briefing Note 9 HoL Education Bill


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CSSA Thinkpiece 1

Key issues for career IAG provision in the Education Bill

Thinkpiece1 CoverDuring the debate on the Education Bill in 2011 there was much discussion about the provisions on careers education, IAG and work-related learning. This short Thinkpiece captures some of the issues:

  • assuring the quality of CEAIG provision;
  • securing face-to-face guidance;
  • transitions to employment;
  • accountability for schools;
  • appropriate resourcing for CEIAG

Thinkpiece 1 Education Bill Objectives