Education and guidance26 June 2008

Event overview

This event was kindly hosted by the Education and Social Research Institute, Manchester Metropolitan University

Since the advent of Connexions, career guidance for 14-19 year olds has been located within a generic youth support service, based on multi-agency working, with targets focused on reducing ‘NEET’. Careers education is also being repositioned within school curricula once again. These moves have raised widespread concerns about the erosion of CEG as a specialist intervention, and the restriction of young people’s universal entitlement to CEG.

Yet new developments such as the Leitch Report, the re-expansion of employer-facing work within many Connexions services, and proposed legislation to raise the participation age to 18, suggest that career education and guidance have a vital part to play in supporting sustainable progression for all young people – and concerns about sharp rises in drop-out from college courses and university degrees underline this point.

Drawing on academic and practitioner research, developmental work, and contributions to current policy consultations, this national NICEC network meeting offered an opportunity to discuss key questions such as:

• What is the distinctive contribution that career guidance can make in supporting sustainable progression for young people?
• Where will careers education sit within personal, social, health and economic education?
• What are the challenges for career guidance in promoting equality of opportunity for all young people, and addressing the barriers they face in the education, training and labour markets?
• What happens to young people not in the ‘priority group’ when targeted provision restricts their access to CEG?

This was a prime opportunity for all those interested in sustainable progression for young people, and/or in CEG, to engage in discussion and dialogue, to develop research agendas, and to network with others working in this field.