AEIAG0076
Written evidence submitted by AGCAS
Contact: Elaine Boyes, AGCAS Executive Director (elaine.boyes@agcas.org.uk)
ABOUT AGCAS
The Association of Graduate Careers Services (AGCAS) is the expert membership organisation for higher education (HE) student career development and graduate employment professionals. Through our members, we support the best possible career outcomes from HE for individuals, institutions, society, and the economy. AGCAS represents 86% of all UK HE Institutions careers services, providing professional development and sharing best practice.
AGCAS members deliver CEIAG to students and graduates, as well as working in partnership with academics and teaching and learning departments within their institution to design and deliver employability and career development learning within the curriculum. They also work closely with employers to facilitate interactions between students and industry at university, through careers fairs, placements, in-curriculum projects and other forms of work-based learning.
We are only addressing the questions relevant to the careers support of HE students and graduates.
We would be happy to contribute to an oral evidence session.
CONSULTATION RESPONSE
Whether the current system of careers education, information, advice and guidance (CEIAG) is serving young people, particularly: those from disadvantaged backgrounds; those who are known to the care system; those who are not in mainstream education, including home-educated pupils and those in alternative provision; those from different ethnic minority backgrounds; and those who have a special educational need or disability.
Graduates are not a homogenous group and their backgrounds and personal characteristics can influence whether they are more likely to become under/unemployed, with differences in experiences for those from different groups post-graduation being further impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic (The impact of covid-19 on recent graduates’ career decisions and outcomes, 2020/21).
The vast majority of HE careers services provide careers advice and guidance that is tailored to the particular needs of disadvantaged groups (AGCAS HE careers service resourcing report 2018). Over two thirds of careers services have initiatives for students with a disability or physical/mental condition(s). Over half of careers services have initiatives for non-traditional students (NTS), including students from schools/areas of low HE participation, BAME students, and students from other disadvantaged backgrounds.
Phoenix, the AGCAS journal, showcases specific examples of how AGCAS member services are supporting international students (October 2019), disabled students (February 2019), and support social mobility (February 2018). A more recent edition (February 2021) featured articles from careers and employability professionals showing how they specifically tailor their careers advice and guidance to the needs of their black students and graduates. There are also case studies showing how careers services support international students and graduates in the AGCAS/UUKi report ‘Supporting international graduate employability: making good on the promise’ (January 2020).
Providing more funding and support to the HE careers and employability community would enable further research into why outcomes gaps exist and facilitate collaborative work to develop interventions that level the playing field at-scale.
How careers and skills guidance could be better embedded in the curriculum across primary, secondary, further, higher, and adult education, to ensure all learners are properly prepared for the world of work
Many HE careers services have seen the creation of new roles with specific responsibility for aligning employability with academic learning. The June 2019 issue of Phoenix was dedicated to exploring how careers services are working collaboratively with academic colleagues, employers, and students to embed employability in the curriculum and influence the strategic alignment of employability with academic learning.
Increasingly, AGCAS members are involved in:
The strategic focus on employability and the underpinning institutional governance structures which determine where employability sits vary significantly across institutions, as do KPIs/accountability/auditing processes and the extent to which there are dedicated roles who are charged with unlocking employability and having curriculum-based discussions with academic colleagues. Some AGCAS members have found that institutional structures can be complicated to manage and cause confusion for students.
However, other AGCAS members advocate that achieving successful outcomes goes beyond the responsibility of the careers service alone and extends the university-wide community, employers, alumni, professional bodies, and third-party providers, and many more. It is through partnerships between careers professionals, academics, and others that careers and employability support – including advice and guidance – can be delivered in a way that is targeted, personalised, accessible, and scalable. In fact, 74% of careers professionals feel they would be more effective if they collaborated more with academic colleagues in their university (Handshake, AGCAS, Wonkhe, ISE Careers 2032 Report, 2022). As a result, it is always welcomed when there are faculty-based units with an interest in employability. To avoid duplication, careers and employability teams work in partnership with the interested parties to develop shared knowledge, goals, and resources.
Regardless of structure, models of delivery and strategies, how to influence the employability community within academia is key to the delivery of effective careers advice and guidance.
How the Government can ensure more young people have access to a professional and independent careers advisor
Impartial, expert CEIAG that meets their individual needs is key in helping people successfully transition into the labour market.
AGCAS appreciates that educational institutions should not be the only provider of careers advice and guidance. Whilst support is available to graduates through many channels, including the National Careers Service (NCS) and local jobs centres, HE careers services have specialist expertise and knowledge with this particular cohort. We believe that university careers services are the mechanism by which careers advice and guidance is delivered to students and graduates, due to the expertise they possess,
They have the experience and networks to effectively generate and facilitate strong graduate progression. With their expert knowledge of local and national labour markets, higher education careers services are uniquely placed to support their graduates to navigate the complex economy they will enter. They also understand their student cohorts most likely to be at risk of entering under/unemployment and are well-placed to identify them and deliver tailored support, including careers advice and guidance
For example:
To support this expertise, careers services also draw on a range of effective networks such as:
The main challenge for HE careers services is the resource needed to support graduates, rather than expertise.
A 2020 AGCAS report shows that all AGCAS member services surveyed offer careers and employability support to their graduates, and 38% offer lifetime support to graduates. We expect that graduates experiencing difficulties accessing support do not do so because of lack of support on offer but because they do not know that it is on offer.
Clearer signposting to the availability of careers guidance to adults at different stages and an outline of eligibility should form part of any 'promotion' of access to careers guidance. Crucially, this should include the HE offer of CEIAG to recent graduates. For example, any central promotion of the NCS could include a statement saying, "if you are a recent graduate, don't forget that you can still access your university's careers service.” Furthermore, we know people will look for vacancies even if they do not search for career guidance support. It could be prudent to place a requirement on all vacancy advertising sites to signpost to sources of careers guidance, including HE careers services and the NCS.
Furthermore, AGCAS research suggests that a significantly higher proportion of students educated at private schools reported that careers support had been provided in comparison to state school students. A lack of professional career guidance support pre-university means that students are less prepared to take advantage of careers support and guidance whilst at university and beyond, partly because they do not understand what it is and what it can achieve for them. An updated careers strategy should ensure that all young people – whatever their background or socioeconomic status – should have equitable access to careers advice and guidance.
Whether the proposals for CEIAG in the Government’s Skills for Jobs White Paper will effectively address current challenges in the CEIAG system
Policymakers and government recognise that careers advice works and Skills for Jobs: Lifelong Learning for Opportunity and Growth has indicated increased support for access to higher education and upskilling for adults. However, this plan, and wider conversations about careers advice and guidance, often overlook CEIAG delivery to students and graduates. In this sense, HE careers and employability delivery is not prioritised or recognised sufficiently. There is a clear economic imperative to prioritise careers advice and guidance for graduates as the under/unemployment of graduates significantly wastes their skills and ability and reduces the chances that they will earn the required loan repayment threshold. The Covid-19 pandemic has already had a severe effect on graduate employment and opportunities for career development. It is important to support graduates to avoid under/unemployment in order to help the economy to fully recover, combat the potential long-term ‘scarring’ effect of the pandemic on graduates’ future success and give them the best possible chance of achieving their goals and aspirations.
We support the Skills for Jobs: Lifelong Learning for Opportunity and Growth’s commitment to providing technical skills/qualifications but note that in transitioning to ‘digital first’ solutions, HE careers services have quickly recognised that not all staff and students have the same level of digital capital and confidence. Having access to appropriate digital infrastructure influences how effectively students can engage with digital activities. There are significant differences between students/staff who have access to this digital infrastructure and those that do not and so we recommend that the design of support/initiatives take this into account.
There are also differences between young people that are “rich” in digital capital and confidence and those who are not. There are preconceptions that this generation of students are all digitally competent but their digital skills, confidence, and preference/level of engagement with remote delivery differs substantially. Like social capital, digital capital depends on factors such as access to technology, parents’ engagement with technology, and more, and there is often an intersection between lower digital capital and other factors that affect entry to and success at university. As hybrid modes of working and requirement for digital skills become more entrenched in the professional world, many careers and employability professionals are concerned about the potential this has to further disadvantage graduates with lower levels of digital capital/confidence when entering the post-Covid economy. This could potentially exacerbate social divides, and impact further upon social mobility, and must be considered in initiatives such a as Skills for jobs, which focus on the development of young people’s technical skills.
Whether greater investment to create a robust system of CEIAG is needed, and how could this be targeted, to create a stronger CEIAG.
As evidenced in this response, AGCAS member careers services have the expertise, experience and knowledge to make them best placed to provide quality CEIAG to HE students and graduates from all backgrounds. We therefore advocate for more resource to be allocated to careers services to support these groups. The biggest challenge currently facing careers services is budgetary and resource constraints. In order to offer the best support for graduates at risk of precarious employment or under/unemployment, careers services must receive appropriate investment, resource, and capacity.
AGCAS member services recognise the challenges facing their recent, and upcoming, graduating
classes. Eighty-two percent of AGCAS member services have seen demand for careers and employability support from the 2020 graduate cohort increase in comparison to previous cohorts: with a number seeing increased take-up of services from graduates who left the institution over two years ago. The increased demand for services from graduates is partly in response to the economic circumstances but also due to increased effort from HE careers services to encourage un/under-employed graduates to seek support.
Alongside increasing demand for CEIAG, in an AGCAS Survey of Heads of careers services conducted during July and August 2020 Heads of careers services outlined that the biggest challenge has been cuts made to their staffing and/or budget, including recruitment freezes, and an inability to recruit to fill vacancies.
According to this AGCAS Survey, the average number of staff employed in careers services decreased from 26 in 2018, to 23 in 2020. Whilst recognising this is a small decrease, staffing levels are closer to those recorded in 2016. In a metric-driven policy landscape that has seen a continued rise in student numbers and an increased focus on students’ transitions out of university and into the workplace, we would have expected careers service staffing to have increased, rather than decreased, since 2018. The wider pressure on resources for careers services, however, has come from the immense pressure being faced by their institutions in delivering a meaningful educational experience during the pandemic.
KEY RECOMMENDATIONS FROM AGCAS
March 2022