Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what steps he is taking to encourage industry to engage with local schools on increasing (a) employment and (b) apprenticeship opportunities.

As part of our careers strategy setting out our aim to develop a world-class careers system, the Careers and Enterprise Company is taking forward work in this area.

It has developed the Enterprise Advisers Network, resulting in schools, colleges and businesses working together on a national scale. Over 150 businesses are engaged as cornerstone employers and more than 2,500 business people are working with schools and colleges as Enterprise Advisers to improve careers provision. This has led to at least 2 million young people regularly meeting employers and learning about the world of work.

It is establishing 40 Careers Hubs around the country, which are groups of 20 or more secondary schools and colleges located in the same geographic area, working together, and with partners in the business, public, education and voluntary sectors to ensure careers outcomes are improved for all young people and providing young people aged 11-18 with employer encounters.

In addition, schools must open their doors to providers of technical education and apprenticeships to give all young people a better understanding of the qualifications, courses and subjects available. This is enshrined in law, requiring all maintained schools and academies to publish a policy statement setting out how they will do this.

We also offer a free service to schools through the Apprenticeship Support and Knowledge (ASK) project to ensure that teachers have the knowledge and support to enable them to promote apprenticeships to their students. As part of the ASK project, we work with employers to offer Apprenticeship Live broadcasts that schools can stream directly into the classroom. Employers can use these to showcase their apprenticeship programmes and they give students and teachers the opportunity to speak to employers and their apprentices directly. In 2018/19 we delivered over 40 live broadcasts covering a variety of sectors, reaching over 130,000 students and 1,965 teachers.