Careers Education for Students

Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone Excerpts

Thursday 6th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Con)]

My Lords, I warmly congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, on securing this important debate. I share his optimism that this is an area where there is genuine change and development. I notice that former colleagues from another place are in the House: my noble friend Lord Deben and, in particular, my noble friend Lord Baker, who did so much to focus on careers in schools.

An exciting new framework is now in place. I have been rather stunned. I never believe a word any Government say—I assume it is all baloney; instead I go to my own sources and telephone people in the areas I care about to ask them what is really happening. I have therefore spoken to my former colleagues in a prosperous area in Surrey, but I have also checked up in the area where I have a particular commitment in Hull, and in the Isle of Wight, which is another area of significant deprivation and low expectation. Out there, and across the country, the new strategy is working. It is exciting, things are happening and people are engaged, and I have not met the customary cynicism. I agree that the branding is not particularly high but I am more excited by the activity on the ground.

In his maiden speech, the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, described careers education as,

“the bridge from education to employment”.

I respect his comment, also from his maiden speech, that,

“what matters most is not what is guaranteed but what is delivered … delivery must cover all the skills, attitudes and expectations needed by our young people to make a successful transition into employment and worthwhile careers, to the benefit of our nation”.—[Official Report, 26/11/09; cols. 505-6.]

I am optimistic that that is what we are seeing at the moment.

I also have to make the link to our previous debate in which we discussed prisons and some of the severe problems in them. The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Gloucester talked about giving people in prison a sense of hope. Of course there is no greater sense of hope for anyone in the prison institutions than the sense that there will be employment and opportunity in the future. I have worked closely with Working Chance, a wonderful initiative to help women in prison get work experience and job training so that when they leave the prison they can rebuild their lives and have active employment. Obviously, we are talking about schools, colleges and universities, but this initiative is so important for all sectors of our society.

This debate, as the noble Lord, Lord Aberdare, said, is particularly timely, because of the urgency of addressing our productivity gap, in the context of profound uncertainty around our exiting the European Union, and the rapidly evolving patterns of work and employment. The latest report from the Office for National Statistics on international productivity comparisons exposed a disturbing shortfall versus the rest of the G7. Britain’s productivity was revealed to be 22.6% lower than that of the US, 22.8% lower than France’s and 26.2% lower than Germany’s. A significant contributing factor is inefficiency in the allocation of workers to careers. The mismatch between the skills young people choose to prioritise during their education and the skills sought by employers results in inefficient deployment. Many industries struggle to find suitable labour; others place individuals with superfluous or irrelevant training in jobs for which they are overqualified. As we leave the EU, this issue of skills shortage will be all the more central; it is high time we looked at the talents and skills of all our pupils and students and helped them find worthwhile employment.

Even more significant is the whole disruptive change in the workplace. The Institute for the Future estimated that 85% of jobs that will exist in 2030 have yet to be invented. That is not some distant future—students who will enter the workforce in 2030 are already in school today. Britain and the rest of the world are experiencing disruptive change in the jobs market at an unprecedented rate. Cyber-physical systems, robotics, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, nanotechnology, biotechnology, additive manufacturing, fifth-generation wireless technologies and autonomous vehicles of the fourth industrial revolution all accelerate the transformation of our work environments and the skills required. I am afraid that, if I were required to have any of those skills or qualities, I would be on the employment scrapheap immediately.

We must ensure that our careers education and advice not only gives young people aspirations and prepares them to follow their goals but also supplies them with vital employability skills that are transferrable in an unpredictable jobs landscape where, above all, technology will be an underpinning, as my noble friend Lord Baker has long advocated. Patterns of work are moving away from the traditional “job for life”; young people will have to navigate their careers differently, expecting to change role more frequently than in the past. We have to prepare them for this changed world, regardless of social class, ethnicity or gender. We must look to every individual in society and see how they can make a contribution.

In discussing careers education, social mobility has rightly and understandably taken an ever higher profile. An essential component of any effective strategy for advancing social mobility is good careers guidance and education. This should begin as early as the primary stage. Careers education benefits pupils from all socioeconomic backgrounds, but the biggest difference is made to those in society who are less well-networked and less affluent. The education system needs to be strong enough to bridge the gaps in informal networks, to ensure greater equality in how young people set their aspirations and develop their awareness of the world of work.

One cannot overstate the advantage of informal networks—friends, family and colleagues. But it is evident to us all that the difference between the opportunities such networks offer to many in Surrey, for example, compared to those in the Hull Humber region, or perhaps the Isle of Wight, is stark.

Beyond simply making sure that all pupils have the knowledge and confidence to make informed decisions for their long-term career path, we need to invoke excitement and passion about what the future can hold. I enormously welcome the careers strategy published last December. There is no substitute for giving pupils hands-on experience in work environments; hearing, seeing and meeting have far more impact than simply reading.

I give great credit to a number of key women: the former Secretary of State for Education and Minister for Women and Equalities, Nicky Morgan; the present responsible Minister, Anne Milton; the chairman of the Careers & Enterprise Company, Christine Hodgson, a formidable businesswoman; and the hugely talented chief executive, ex-McKinsey, Claudia Harris. These four women have made it their cause to ensure we see real results and put a practical careers strategy in place, and I will quickly give some examples.

Looking to the Humber, the Careers & Enterprise Company does wonderful work there. The Greenpower Education Trust, for example, has engaged local schools with STEM by challenging students to design, build and race electric cars. The University of Hull, where I am chancellor, played a major role, constructing on campus a “green power garage”—it funded over 30 cars and provided the tools and equipment. All this is achieved in partnership with the LEP, where the noble Lord, Lord Haskins, is chairman. Again at the LEP, two excellent women—enterprise co-ordinator Jenny Vincent and director of skills education and employment Teresa Chalmers—have really taken this to heart. They did so much in the City of Culture, with others.

I so welcome our new noble Baroness, Lady Bull, who I knew during my years as Secretary of State for Culture for the formidable and talented individual that she is. How right that skills and opportunities in the creative arts have so much to offer this next generation. I am excited about the progress being made by the Education and Employers task force, getting people with practical skills to teach careers education, not simply teachers; and I have huge confidence in the Gatsby benchmarks—at last, we have a measure to assess progress.

Getting Skills Right, the UK report by the OECD last year, found that 40% of British workers were either overqualified or underqualified for their jobs. Increasing the effectiveness of our careers guidance in education will enlighten learners to the paths for which they are best suited, allowing them to hone their subject choices and prepare for the world of work. We want people in work, fulfilling their skills and playing to their personalities—not feeling undervalued and resentful about their gifts and how they are being used.