Labour set to test schools over pupils’ employability

LABOUR is considering making schools more accountable for whether their pupils go on to further training or secure jobs.

The idea could form part of wider reforms to the way schools approach preparing children for work including a beefed-up careers service.

It was put forward by Liam Byrne, Labour’s Shadow Further Education Minister, during a visit to Leeds yesterday.

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Colleges and universities are already expected to show what happens to their former students and Mr Byrne thinks the same approach could be applied to schools.

He said: “One of things I’m really worried about is the destruction of the careers service because that’s a huge problem and if we want more people to go into science and engineering we are going to have to think about how we rebuild the careers service.

“And it’s particularly important for young women because often young women will need focused tailored advice to inspire them to choose those kind of careers.

“I think we should be debating how we bring the world of work and the world of school closer together and one of the things I think we’ve got to explore is whether we should look at what happens to a school’s graduates in the workplace. I think a lot of schools would really welcome that.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

Mr Byrne was speaking during a visit to the Leeds office of engineering consultancy Halcrow, part of the CH2M Hill Group, where he met civil engineering technician Beth Wilson who qualified through an apprenticeship with the company and Leeds College of Building.

He said Labour was committed to providing a “gold standard apprenticeship” that offers an alternative route into skilled and professional work than the traditional university path.

“We are really worried that apprenticeships are being dumbed down by this Government, lots of employers are telling us the apprenticeship badge is being put on any old training scheme.

“A lot of the changes that Michael Gove is making to the education system aren’t encouraging people to take that gold standard apprenticeship route into the world of work and worse than that a lot of employers are saying its no good teaching our kids Latin when we need software engineers.”

Hide Ad
Hide Ad

The last Labour Government was criticised for putting too much emphasis on encouraging teenagers to take degrees at the expense of vocational education but Mr Byrne insisted it was the right approach.

“By 2020, business says 40 per cent of jobs in Britain will be graduate jobs.

“Why? Because we are competing with the world on skills and brain power so we needed to become a country that sent more than a third of its young people to university, we do need to be a country that sends half of our young people to university but we can’t forget the other 50 per cent.”