Many schools ‘fail on careers advice quality’

Inspectors said a new legal duty on schools – brought in last year – to provide careers guidance is not working properly, with pupils given “narrow” information, and rarely told about courses other than A-levels.

It suggested few schools knew how to offer a good careers service and claimed they did not have good links with businesses to give pupils experience of the working world.

The report also condemned Government guidance for schools on careers, saying it was not clear enough, and failed to properly promote the National Careers Service.

Ofsted’s chief inspector, Sir Michael Wilshaw, said it was worrying the new system was “failing to promote vocational training options and apprenticeships”.

Its report, based on visits to 60 secondary schools and academies, looked at the state of careers education following the Government’s decision to hand responsibility for careers guidance to schools in September last year. Inspectors found only 12 of the schools visited were providing decent impartial careers advice.

The report concluded: “From the evidence gathered by this survey, too few schools are providing careers guidance that meets the needs of all their students.”

Ofsted urges the Government to improve the tracking of pupils’ path from leaving school to getting a job through “destination data”.

It also suggested it improve its guidance to schools and said Ofsted inspectors will now be giving a greater weight to careers advice when assessing schools.

Graham Stuart, the chairman of the education select committee and Beverley and Holderness MP, said the report made an “irresistible case for change”. He added it revealed “the extent to which young people are being failed by the quality of the careers advice on offer... It is completely unacceptable that Ofsted assess that 80 per cent of schools are not providing effective careers guidance for all their students.

“The education reforms the Government has undertaken are undermined if there is no decent signposting within education and between education and the world of employment.”