Schools and colleges should have direct responsibility for providing information, advice and guidance, with a professional careers service located in every school and college – starting from primary age.
Audience/stakeholder: Further Education
‘Skills for Growth’ details the changes planned to ensure the UK skills system delivers the quality and types of skills needed, including for future jobs and industries which don’t even exist yet. Greater choice, vocational routes and employer engagement will improve social mobility and access to the professions. We will review the balance of public spending between further education (FE) and higher education (HE) and seek ways to increase HE offered through FE providers. FE providers will play a key role in providing excellent and aspirational information, advice and guidance, including regarding routes into the professions.
Recommendation 23: Reforming careers advice
The Government should remove careers responsibility from the Connexions service. It should reallocate an estimated £200 million to schools and colleges in order to give them the freedom to tender for careers services from a range of providers.
Recommendation 25: Reforming careers advice
Schools, colleges and professions should work in partnership to produce career prospectuses and online information sources aimed at parents. Information could include routes into different professions and the remuneration and costs involved.
Recommendation 33: Vocational routes into higher education
The Government should ensure that it delivers on its commitment to incorporate apprenticeship frameworks into the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) points system by 2010.
Recommendation 35: Vocational routes into higher education
Universities and colleges, working with the Government, should make the concept of ‘Higher Education within Further Education’ one that is universal across the country so that many more mature students, in particular, are able to study for a degree.
Recommendation 38: Widening Participation further
The Government should redirect an element of widening participation resources into supporting these local partnerships.
Recommendation 56: Affordability: removing financial constraints
The Government should allow students to draw down their existing Student Loan entitlement in four parts, rather than the current three, so enabling students to be able to cover the additional costs of undertaking a short summer internship. The Government should review how to appropriately target additional loan support to such students through this window.
Recommendation 77: A new demand-led training system that empowers learners
The Government should reconfigure the existing Skills Account programme to establish a truly demand-driven system of Lifelong Skill Accounts. They could comprise a voucher up to the value of £5,000 that could be topped up through contributions from individuals and employers with a wide range of entitlements, including to apprenticeships, professional qualifications and to part-time further and higher education programmes, for example.