157 Group responds to Ofsted's report on careers guidance in schools
10th September 2013
The 157 Group has responded to the publication this morning of Going In The Right Direction, Ofsted's survey of how schools are implementing the statutory duty to provide independent careers guidance to 14 to 16 year-olds. The report is highly critical of practice in the sample of schools visited and notes in particular that vocational learning opportunities and apprenticeships are not well promoted, especially in schools with their own sixth forms.
Lynne Sedgmore, executive director of the 157 Group, said, "This report is highly worrying, but at the same time very welcome. In recent months, organisations as diverse as the CBI and Barnardo's have sought to shine a spotlight on the quality of careers guidance in schools, and today's conclusions mirror concerns raised by the 157 Group as long ago as January 2012, when our policy paper Information is Not Enough highlighted the importance of this issue.
This report is proof of what our member Colleges experience in their local areas - that too few pupils are even being informed about the different options available to them, letalone properly guided through the difficult process of making a choice that is right for them. It is good that Ofsted acknowledges the important role that it has to play in future inspections, and that both the Government and the National Careers Service are being encouraged to provide clearer direction to schools in this regard.
Many Further Education Colleges offer excellent advice and guidance services, very often accredited to the nationally-recognised Matrix standard. They will be only too pleased to support schools in making sure that the appalling situation described today by Ofsted is swiftly put right."
Peter Roberts, chair of the 157 Group and chief executive of Leeds City College, said, "For many reasons, the landscape of possible choices for young people after the age of 14 is complex. One reason for this is that we have evolved a world-class system that means everyone should be able to select a pathway that is right for them and will bring them success. How shameful is it, then, that helping those young people negotiate their way through it is being left, by far too many schools, to chance?
We encourage the Government and others now to properly take stock of the poor practice highlighted today and to set out a much clearer expectation that every young person will not only have all their options properly explained, but will also be properly guided and supported to make the right choices. In other words, we agree that careers guidance needs to be urgently and systematically improved in schools, and we would go further by requiring careers education to once again figure in the school curriculum."
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