My Lords, this amendment would require the Secretary of State
âto create a framework for careers education in primary schools and to give financial assistance to primary schools in areas of disadvantage to deliver the programme.â
I am grateful for the advice given by Teach First on this amendment, which also draws on the success of the North East Ambition project, supported by Ernst & Youngâs EY Foundation. It also reflects the conclusions and recommendations of this Houseâs Select Committee on Youth Unemployment, which reported six months ago.
Last week Teach First, the education charity, launched a report entitled Rethinking Careers Education: Investing in Our Countryâs Future, which highlighted the impact of the pandemic on young peopleâs career opportunities. Teach First concluded that schools with catchment areas covering the most disadvantaged communities have been hardest hit by the pandemic and that specific extra resource is needed for them. It also concluded that careers education should start in primary schools. Teachers support this, with clear evidence of primary teachers believing that career-related learning for their pupils would raise those pupilsâ awareness of different career pathways, with two-thirds feeling that pupilsâ aspirations would be raised by this.
These conclusions are similar to those underpinning the work of the North East Ambition project, which aims to put in place the good career guidance benchmarks
in all schools in the North East Local Enterprise Partnership area by 2024. This is welcome, and we know from the recommendations of the Youth Unemployment Select Committee that those career guidance benchmarks should be
ârolled out to primary schools and be more effectively embedded in the national curriculum so that all young people learn about the myriad opportunities that are open to them from an early age.â
This is about raising aspiration and personal ambition, and through that, crucially, social mobility. The committee heard conclusive evidence that children begin to think about their futures when they are as young as five or six. By the age of seven, life-defining decisions are being formed in their minds. By the age of 10 many have already made career-limiting decisions, and by the age of 14 those decisions will be very firm. Such decisions can be based on where they live, who they know and what jobs those people do. For social mobility to be successful, it requires much earlier intervention.
Recently, statutory careers guidance advice in schools was rolled out to include year 7 pupils. Now is the time to take a further step and to extend statutory provision to our primary schools. I beg to move.
3.15 pm