THE CAREERS & ENTERPRISE COMPANY – WRITTEN EVIDENCE (YUN0035)

Youth Unemployment Committee inquiry

About The Careers & Enterprise Company (CEC)

1. The CEC was established in 2015 and is funded by Government to be the national body for careers education in in England. We aim for high quality, modern careers education for everyone, everywhere so that all young people can find their best next steps. Through training, networks and tools we:

• Support schools and colleges to deliver excellence.
• Support employers to engage with purpose.
• Give focus to those young people who face more barriers.

2.        Our model targets four interconnected layers of support for every young person:

• A Careers Leader within their school or college who has been trained in toolkits of best practice, including how to secure positive post-16 destinations. This work is aided by a national self-assessment tool, Compass+ which allows careers activities to be tracked and performance monitored.

• A school or college where there is purposeful engagement with business (through senior business volunteers and committed local employers).
• A local area where activity is coordinated and institutions work together to make sure young people have access to all the options (the Careers Hub model, which currently includes 45 per cent of mainstream schools and colleges in England).
• A national body to share what works and promote consistency.

Executive Summary

3. The CEC welcomes the opportunity to contribute to this enquiry and agrees with the Committee’s emerging assessment of the employment challenges faced by young people. Namely, short-term Covid-related instability combined with longer term structural changes to the economy.
4. High quality careers education has an important role to play to address these challenges. The international evidence (codified in the Gatsby Benchmarks) stipulates that effective careers education is supported by a number of enabling conditions:[1]

• Every school and college with a strategic approach that sees careers education as core business.
• Sustained relationships between employers and schools and colleges that support employment-related experiences and learning.
• A focus on meeting the individual needs of each student (and removing barriers).
• Collaboration between local schools, colleges, apprenticeship providers, and others so that young people are presented with the full range of options and can pursue pathways linked to their talent and passion.
• A link between career guidance and the local jobs market.

5. Education systems that get this right see significant benefits.[2] [3] Studies over a number of years show careers education can improve employment-related skills,[4] [5] attainment (including higher GCSE and A level grades),[6] [7]secure transitions to the labour market and higher wages.[8] [9]
6. The CEC welcomes the public investment in careers education since the Government’s Careers Strategy.[10]  In the past three years, we have seen progress made by schools and colleges to improve quality and coverage. We now have the foundations of a modern careers education system, driven nationally by the internationally recognised Gatsby Benchmarks,[11] and delivered locally through CEC’s partnerships with Local Enterprise Partnerships, Mayoral Combined Authorities and Local Authorities.
7.        In that time, we have seen:

• A new workforce within schools and colleges, Careers Leaders, trained and resourced to improve careers education for their learners. About 5,000 secondary schools and colleges in England have named a Careers Leader and by August 2021, 2,000 will have received CEC-funded training, with many more accessing CPD opportunities and resources on a regular basis.
• An increase in business engagement with education, with schools and employers both reporting that things have improved.[12] [13]
• Local coordination through Careers Hubs, targeted initially at schools and colleges in areas of disadvantage, which has led to accelerated progress. 2,239 secondary schools and colleges (45 per cent of the total) are now part of a Careers Hub.
• A careers system able to provide effective responses during the pandemic. This included supporting employers and careers providers to keep delivering online and targeted, local support for key cohorts last summer. For example:

-          CEC launched ‘My Week of Work’ with Oak National Academy and Learn Live UK to facilitate employer engagement as an immediate substitute for lost work experience. 120,000 users took part, commanding a higher completion rate from young people than any other content on the Oak platform.

-          Last summer, in response to a reduction in apprenticeship opportunities, the CEC Network in Derby led a consortium comprising the Local Enterprise Partnership, Local Authority, Apprenticeship programme (ASK), DWP, local FE Colleges, apprenticeship providers and employers to support local young people. Initiatives included wrap around support for those most as risk of becoming NEET and a YouTube channel guiding young people to local opportunities. From a c100 pupil sample, 84 per cent of post-18s had a positive destination with 98 per cent for post-16s.

8. The CEC supports the measures outlined in the Skills for Jobs White Paper, including actions to address national and local skills shortages, and the rebalancing towards vocational and technical routes (and the role of the CEC’s infrastructure - notably Careers Hubs - in achieving this).
9. More broadly, Careers education is the bridge between the world of work and the world of education – to the benefit of each other. For schools and colleges, employers bring a rigorous reference site for learning important skills. For employers, working with schools helps them build their future workforce.

Q1. What are the main challenges facing young people seeking employment today? How do structural factors impact youth unemployment, and how might these be addressed?

10.         Youth unemployment has been exacerbated by the pandemic, not least because of the impact on the sorts of industries young people first go into.[14] [15] We have seen apprenticeship starts for 16-24 year-olds fall by 27 per cent in the second half of 2020 compared to the same period in the previous year (conversely there was only a 7 per cent drop among those aged 25 and older.)[16]
11.         Although this picture may change if the economic conditions improve, uncertainty is likely to continue with the prospect of more fundamental changes in the labour market brought about by automation and decarbonisation.[17] This will require young people to adapt and respond quickly to new career opportunities in emerging high-growth, high-skill sectors[18].
12.         In this context, young people need to boost their employability by developing the skills that employers say they want (‘oracy’, ‘collaboration’ etc.) and will pay for.[19] It also means they need to know how to manage their careers so they can weather changes in the future. Careers education that exposes young people to these skills and uses experiences with employers to embed learning can make a difference. In fact, young people taking part in these sort of careers activities report they are more confident about their skills and more ready to adapt.[20]
13.         Young people’s awareness of pathways leading to jobs, particularly vocational and technical routes, is also important. By bringing together local employers, apprenticeship providers, colleges and schools, the CEC enables better exposure to all pathways and allows Careers Leaders to support their students. The evidence shows that improvements in career guidance can lead to higher levels of awareness of technical routes.[21]

Q2. What are the main challenges facing employers in the labour market today? What barriers do they face in recruiting young workers and setting up apprenticeships and traineeships?

14.         In the short-term employers will face substantial Covid related pressures that may influence their ability to recruit young people.[22] In the long-term, addressing productivity issues, including skill gaps and shortages, will be paramount.[23]
15.         Modern careers education helps employers to:
• Engage strategically with education leaders – promoting mutual understanding.
• Communicate directly with young people about the skills they want (and highlight the best pathways to develop these skills).
• Provide meaningful experiences in their workplaces that, at their best, can be opportunities to build a future talent pipeline.
16.         The CEC connects employers to schools and colleges at scale. Infrastructure now exists for business of all sizes, to engage strategically and deliver careers activities in all parts of the country. 91 per cent of employers now report having links with schools, colleges and universities.[24] Across CEC’s network we have:

• Recruited 4,000 Enterprise Advisers (EAs), volunteer senior business professionals who support schools and colleges with their careers programme and help provide opportunities for young people to experience the world of work or meet with employers. An independent evaluation of the EA network found that these business volunteers believe their role plays an important part in generating a skills and talent pipeline for the future. [25] About 50 per cent of EAs work in SMEs.
• Recruited 300 Cornerstone Employers, who lead businesses engagement with local schools and colleges and target support for young people in areas of disadvantage. In a recent survey, 82 per cent reported that being part of the Cornerstone Employer community will improve their ability to meet their skills requirements in a post-Covid world.[26]  One in five Cornerstone Employers are SMEs.

17.         We are seeing examples on the ground where this sort of engagement is leading employers to view the work less as outreach and more as strategic recruitment (see below).

Q3. Does the national curriculum equip young people with the right knowledge and skills to find secure jobs and careers?

18.         The Government’s Careers Strategy (2017) and accompanying statutory guidance has required schools and colleges, by meeting the Gatsby Benchmarks, to do more to integrate careers learning in the curriculum.[27]
19.         Part of the challenge is the disconnect between young people’s skills and the skills needed by employers, with education and business leaders sometimes talking past each other. On the one hand employers point to the increasing importance of ‘essential skills’ (including oracy, creative thinking, teamwork).[28] Business worries that formal education is not equipping young people with these skills.[29] At the same time, schools point out that teaching skills (absent of content and context) is not always easy and that focus is required on subject content (certainly up to 16).[30] [31]
20.         At its best careers education can reconcile these tensions in a number of ways:

• Sustained and meaningful encounters with employers are – in themselves – opportunities to develop essential skills in real settings. Many work experience programmes across the country are explicit about the skills that need building. When these experiences are backed up and reflected on in schools – they can solidify learning.
• Increased employer engagement helps education and business speak the same language; employers understand how the school and college environment works and schools and colleges interpret business needs more practically. This adds rigour to the work with schools implementing quality programmes via the spaces that do exist in the school day (see case study 2).
• At a more structural level, careers education can be a foundational part of supporting skills acquisition within business. The CIPD, whose members are responsible for recruiting managing and training a large proportion of the UKs workforce have made the Enterprise Adviser programme part of their professional volunteering offer. Over 1,000 senior HR professionals across multiple sectors have joined the Network and see the benefits for young people, the school and their organisations.  Sharing her experience of being an Enterprise Adviser, Kim Travers, CIPD member and former Head of HR Services at Transport for London said: “Becoming an Enterprise Adviser has really opened my eyes to the education sector and I feel I have been able to help my school gain more of an understanding from a business perspective….There are also business benefits to being involved; it’s important that schools and businesses are connected so that there is understanding on both sides.”

Q4. Is careers education preparing young people with the knowledge to explore the range of opportunities available? What role does work experience play in this regard?

21.         Government investment into the careers system through schools and colleges is delivering national improvement in careers education. Despite the non-statutory nature of the approach, the large-scale adoption by schools and colleges suggests progress and appetite to improve further.
22.         CEC’s research indicates that young people are reflecting positively about the effects of careers education on their career readiness. We have developed a Future Skills Questionnaire based on the Skills Builder Framework.[32] This is an assessment tool for young people to measure their perceived personal attributes after receiving funded careers-related activity. Our most recent findings (from 2,000 young people surveyed) show that:

• 73 per cent of young people say they are more aware of different careers because of careers provision received.
• 65 per cent have more ideas about their future career.
• 69 per cent have a better understanding of what they need to do to achieve their ambition.
• 75 per cent will continue to work on their career goals even when they get frustrated or hit a barrier.[33]

23.         We are seeing more employers than ever involved with young people: 91 per cent of employers are now engaged with education, and report they are having an impact on young people as a result of these engagements (see case study 3). This is especially the case in Careers Hubs, as schools and colleges in Hubs report more employer encounters and more work experience for young people than those not in Hubs.[34]
24.         Schools and colleges are reporting the positive effect of this work more broadly. 92 per cent of Careers Leaders say their engagement with employers has led to improvements to their overall careers provision.[35]

25.         Work experience plays a critical role as part of wider careers programme. At its best (as described above) it is an important learning opportunity – planned for in advance and reflected on afterwards. The more real the experience, the more rigorous and the more likely to impact the young people. Work experience is not a stand-alone – it forms part of a coherent careers curriculum that seeks to raise aspirations, remove barriers and give young people plans for the future.
26.         However, there is certainly more to do. To ensure every young person has access to high-quality careers education we will (a) continue the roll-out of Careers Hubs of best practice so that all schools and colleges in England, (b) offer CEC-funded training to more Careers Leaders so that they can provide the best support to young people, (c) recruit additional employers so that they can keep supporting schools and colleges, targeting disadvantage and removing barriers, (d) continue to onboard schools on to Compass+, a digital tool which now allows Careers Leaders for the first time to track an individual pupil’s careers education and plan personalised careers programmes accordingly.
27.         More broadly the CEC will continue to prioritise young people’s destinations including apprenticeship and technical routes through targeted support (and challenge) and use of data.

Q5. What more needs to be done to ensure parity of esteem between vocational and academic study in the jobs market and society?

28.         Lack of parity of esteem between academic and technical education has been a longstanding issue in England, despite evidence of high returns to technical qualifications, in some cases better than for academic pathways.[36]
29.         There is evidence that this has started to change, with employers more welcoming of non-academic backgrounds and society more positive about vocational study.[37] [38] The CEC plays a role in helping to promote technical pathways and remove barriers to progression through these routes by:

• Increasing employer encounters so that young people understand which pathways lead to jobs, including apprenticeships, traineeships, applied generals and other technical qualifications. Young people who experience employer encounters and work experience are more likely to consider technical qualifications (see case study 4).[39]
• Supporting schools and colleges to build connections with learning providers, including sixth form colleges, FE, HE, Independent Training Providers (ITPs), and offering information about apprenticeships. In only three years, schools and colleges are reporting they are three times more effective at delivering encounters with the full range of providers.[40]

-          Example: The CEC’s Lancashire Network used its funding to facilitate closer working between schools and the Lancashire Work Based Learning Forum (LBWLF) of local ITPs. This integrated Amazing Apprenticeships and the Young Apprentice Ambassador Network’s inputs into school careers plans.  Local tracking saw more young people choosing an apprenticeship as their intended destination in line with schools and colleges reporting significant progress in their efforts to raise awareness of apprenticeships and technical education[41].

• Supporting Careers Leaders and Education Leaders to improve their understanding of post-16 and post-18 choices and helping them build connections with local and national providers through our network including Careers Hubs. Young people have been found to be more likely to consider apprenticeships and technical qualifications as a result of their school being in the CEC Network or a Careers Hub.[42]

-          Example: The CEC’s Black Country Network used CEC funding to deliver teacher CPD which built an understanding of apprenticeship routes and helped teachers to discuss vocational pathways confidently with parents. Funding was also channelled into the delivery of over 15,000 apprenticeship encounters to local KS3/4 pupils on the full range of apprenticeships. Schools in the Black Country Network are now reporting significant increases in its achievement of Gatsby Benchmark 7 (which relates to young people’s access to apprenticeship providers) from 21 per cent to 53 per cent between 2018 and 2020.

10th May 2021