AIEAG0089

Written evidence submitted by the Ornamental Horticulture Roundtable Group Education & Employment Sub-Committee

Introduction

The Ornamental Horticulture Roundtable Group’s Education and Employment Sub-Committee welcomes the Education Select Committee inquiry into Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance (CEIAG). This submission addresses questions 4, 5 and 6 of the inquiry’s call for evidence. As this inquiry progresses, we would be happy to provide further insights to the Committee that might be considered useful and to provide oral evidence if appropriate.

Answers to questions

• Whether organisations like the Careers Enterprise Company and National Careers Service provide value for money to the taxpayer.

A simplification of the current system is to be recommended and we would support a single body who would take responsibility for all ages. This need is clearly illustrated by the current setup of the service being established region by region with no consistency between the regions. The service is often only as good or engaging as the people that run and operate that particular region. Many of the organisations that represent the horticultural sector operate on a national basis and therefore it is difficult to know where substantial and needed effort to promote careers advice should be targeted. Such a fragmented approach is illustrated by the work of the British Association of Landscape Industries (BALI) under their GoLandscape scheme who endeavoured to contact all the regions throughout England back in 2018 to establish a relationship with their local schools in promoting their careers services. From some areas, they received no response, or an initial reply but no further response, or a response and establishment of a good working relationship that is still going today.

• 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.

This has been a continuing theme for decades with no clear direction on the best way to promote and advise on careers within all forms of Education. The use of Careers Fairs and similar has been a tried and tested method for decades but has never in our opinion provided a worthwhile outcome for either the students or the visiting industry representatives. There are organisations such as Education and Employers who have provided a unique digital platform that helps industries to reach schools and other educational establishments through a number of careers engagement activities, which is to be applauded, but is possibly only a partial solution. Other organisations such as Developing Experts embed careers advice within the curriculum, offering schools free of charge, to join up and use their web-based lesson plans that contain embedded careers advice that then supports key teaching areas. However, such opportunities that enable industry to do this come at a high cost to participate which is prohibitive to many organisations within sectors such as Horticulture, which is made up of mostly SME businesses. Many organisations within the horticultural sector have adapted to the situation seeking to take horticulture into the curriculum such as the Royal Horticultural Society’s Campaign for School Gardening and BALI’s GoLandscape, which run workshops that highlight work-based skills around activities will a ‘real life’ application, using curriculum themes like maths, science, English, art, geography and even history. This is also going into primary schools in the form of a curriculum-centred activity book using landscaped themed activities for many school subjects. However, such activities only target schools that become aware of such campaigns or are alerted to the opportunity, there remains no joined-up approach that a new overall body such as a National Skills Body might bring.

• How schools could be supported to better fulfil their duties to provide careers advice and inform students of technical, as well as academic, pathways.

It is our understanding that all students up to the age of eighteen should have access to dedicated careers advice, but it is the experience of our members that a dedicated careers lead remains absent within schools with the role continuing to be picked up by teachers. We believe that every school should have a dedicated and – most importantly – trained careers lead to both advise pupils but also to build their own knowledge of the myriad of careers options that exist to enable the students to make an informed decision.

Despite the government guidance to schools, 28% of school and college leavers do not think they know all the options available to them, and a further 21% are not sure whether they know them or not. On the specific subject of apprenticeships, almost 40% of school and college leavers do not know the difference between the options of apprenticeship available to them, and over 32% do not know what type of apprenticeship to do. It is clear schools are not fulfilling their obligation to provide information.[1]

There still needs to be a balance between the way routes are explained that take people into work, especially between academic and other routes like vocational training. It can still come across that the routes outside of the academic ones are ‘poor relations’. This is further consolidated when entry levels to different routes, (like A-levels and T-levels which are supposed to be both worth the same) are different. For example, students are not required to have key subjects like maths and English to do T-levels but would need to have these to do A-levels.

Reaching parents and carers also needs to be included as they are often the source of information for their own children. However, it is not clear how up to date are they on the current work opportunities available to their children, or how much of their understanding relies on information from their children’s school.

March 2022