AEIAG0010

Written evidence submitted by Fred Jenkins

Fred Jenkins MBE , BSc Hons ,Dip in Careers Guidance

Currently I am a retired Careers Adviser who is now co chair of governors at Longcause Community Special School in Plymouth.

My experience of working within the careers education and guidance sector includes 34 years of employment within careers guidance providers managed by local authorities, government agencies and the private sector.

I would like to submit the following individual views for consideration on the future of careers education, information, advice and guidance. These do not necessarily represent the views of the school where I currently act as a governor.

• There has been a fragmentation of careers provision over particularly the past decade and it’s perhaps fair to say that the roots of this situation can be traced back much further. Throughout my own career in the sector there has been a lack of clarity and purpose from central government in relation to careers education, advice and guidance, including evidence of an overall strategy. The careers profession has therefore often been shrouded in a ‘fog’ of uncertainty about it’s future direction, management, funding and at times existence. It is therefore essential for the future that there is a more focused national strategy that places careers education, information, advice and guidance at the heart of the government’s plans for developing the skills of the wider population. This should include reform of the training of new careers professionals to ensure that there are adequate numbers of professionally qualified advisers able to work across the board in the future. Significant numbers of advisers left the sector 10 to 12 years ago and it is only in more recent years that steps have been taken to begin to address the skill shortages within the profession.
• Any future national strategy should encompass the requirement for an all age guidance approach to ensure that both young people and adults can access independent and impartial careers advice and guidance. This access should include the use of virtual technologies but also free provision where required of face to face advice which has become more restricted particularly for certain groups of individuals in recent history.
• It will be essential that future services reconnect with those young people who are, or at risk of not being in education, training and employment to offer the effective advice and guidance that is required to help them to engage more effectively with learning new skills, which can only be done by working closely with partner youth agencies to avoid duplication of effort and to better target expert help. A community based approach may be required to ensure that young people can access help in the most convenient places and by the most ‘young person friendly’ methods.
• A more personalised approach to working with young people with additional needs will be a key factor in helping these young people to make the transition into employment and further learning. This more personalised approach would be more time and resource intensive adopting coaching techniques that would build individual confidence on the ladder to further education, training and employment. Potentially more effort and resources should be targeted at those aged 18 to 25 who are at a point where labour market options are being considered.

• Every young person aged 14 to 19 should have a universal entitlement to independent and impartial careers information, advice and guidance. This will help to ensure that those individuals will be able to make fully informed choices about the future learning and career opportunities that meet their interests, aspirations and abilities.
• Careers professionals have much to gain from providing advice and guidance services to adults. This can inform their work with younger client groups by developing a better understanding of ‘real life’ skills and employment pathways that individuals take, the barriers faced by them and how these barriers may be avoided or better overcome by younger people. A more coherent strategy needs to be put in place where services for young people and adults are more joined up than is the case at present.
• Careers professionals need to have a significant proportion of their time available to meet and speak with employers and those organisations delivering skills training. Careers advice and guidance cannot be delivered effectively in a vacuum and all advisers need to have and be seen to have the over arching expert knowledge of the labour market, career opportunities and employment trends.

February 2022