Opportunity Scotland: A Paper on Lifelong Learning

Opportunity Scotland: A Paper on Lifelong Learning

7. The Right Advice and Guidance

7.1 High quality, impartial advice and guidance is essential for young people making important transitions from school. This is when they make important decisions about career paths and we must ensure that they are well equipped to make these choices and decide what paths of study will help them achieve their career goals.

Careers Education

7.2 Careers education is delivered in a variety of ways in Scottish schools, and with varying degrees of consistency. For many, careers education takes place in Personal and Social Education classes; the input can be concentrated in a single year, or can be offered over the whole of a pupil's time in school. Careers advice, normally on a one-to-one basis with a professional careers adviser is available to pupils at least once in S4-S6. Advice and guidance is also available to people in further education, and to young unemployed people. We have asked careers service companies and schools to work more closely together in the design of careers education; and to bring greater coherence to the delivery of careers education and careers guidance. We will consider producing guidelines on careers education.

7.3 Young people entering work and training today will face continuous and rapid change and their skills will need constant development. It is vital that the advice and guidance young people receive from schools and professional advisers explains this and reflects the reality of the world. Careers education in schools needs to be much more closely informed by what is happening in the current labour market. Young people will make more informed choices if they have a greater understanding of the labour

market and how it works. Careers service companies will work more closely with both employers and schools to make sure that they are in a position to help young people understand the labour market, and the benefits of a positive approach to training and learning in their adult lives.

Glasgow Careers Service Employers' Centre

Glasgow Careers Service has established a dedicated employers' centre to improve the flow of information and job vacancies to young people in the City. The centre actively seeks vacancies from employers, and makes the vacancies available to careers offices across the city and beyond. The profile of the centre has helped to raise awareness amongst young people of the opportunities in the job market in Glasgow, and has considerably increased employers' awareness of the supply of young candidates for jobs. The centre also promotes a better understanding of the education system amongst employers.

Highland Careers Services

Highland Careers Services aim to overcome remoteness through partnership and collaboration with other key players by producing a menu of products for use in careers education by careers advisers, pupils, parents and teachers. This is aimed at leading to a significant improvement in the use of labour market information in guidance. So far, the emphasis has been on labour market information awareness and familiarisation with sources of information. This will build up a resource base for the remainder of the project. It is eventually intended to produce tangible labour market information for use by, and with, the whole range of the careers service company's clients.

Youth Information Services

7.4 Recent years have seen the growth of youth information services provided as part of local authority community education. The capacity of these informal services to reach young people has considerable potential and we will look for ways of building on this work. Where appropriate we will encourage linkages with other information services to ensure that the information provided is up-to-date and providers are well informed about referral opportunities.

8. Training and Learning From Age 16-18

8.1 To raise skills levels and tackle social exclusion we must attract more 16-18 year olds into further education and training and make sure that they achieve at least a Level 2 qualification. This will demand full participation and commitment from all sectors - schools, further education, community education, training and careers service companies. We know that the commitment is there and have decided to harness it within one overall strategy to promote access and opportunity. It will offer the opportunity for all 16-18 year olds to continue in learning and obtain qualifications. This strategy will focus on:

providing opportunities for young people with different needs and abilities; and delivering well-targeted and informed advice and guidance about the full range of opportunities.

8.2 Our commitment is to provide a range of opportunities for young people to continue learning when they leave compulsory education. This must include access to skills training. We know that for many young people their aptitude is for practical learning, now delivered through work-based learning. This needs to be a high quality route for young people, well-targeted at the needs of employers and of young people themselves. We want it to be recognised as an option equal in value to staying on at school or attending college.

Skillseekers and Modern Apprenticeships

8.3 The introduction of Skillseekers across Scotland in 1995 gave a major new impetus to youth training. It has proved to be a highly effective training programme for young people, clearly focused on:

the individual's training needs; qualifications; and employer involvement.

We now have more young people training while in employment, more qualifications being achieved and training geared more directly to the needs of the local labour market.

SKILLSEEKERS

Number of VQs achieved at Level 2 and above

Footnote:

1) These are national figures which combine Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise performance for Skillseekers

2) Skillseekers was not introduced nationally until 1995, therefore some residual Youth Training will be included in these figures.

We intend to build on the success of Skillseekers by encouraging more employers to become more directly involved in training and by encouraging more young people to pursue a SVQ Level 3.

8.4 A key development within the Skillseekers programme has been the introduction of Modern Apprenticeships which support young people training for craft, technician or trainee management level jobs at SVQ Level 3 or above. Modern Apprenticeships are particularly important for providing the trained technical and craft personnel required by industries such as engineering and shipbuilding.

8.5 There are now 57 frameworks and around 7,800 Modern Apprentices. So far the uptake has been mainly in traditional sectors, such as construction, engineering and motor vehicle maintenance but we hope to see more young people taking up Modern Apprenticeships, particularly in non-traditional sectors such as banking and insurance where numbers are low. We are concerned that substantially fewer girls, and even fewer young people from ethnic minorities, are taking up Modern Apprenticeships. We recognise the need to tap into this potential and are, therefore, setting a target of 15,000 Modern Apprenticeships by the year 2002.

Scottish Engineering Connections

This year Scottish Enterprise teamed up with the engineering industry to launch a major recruitment campaign for young people. Scottish Engineering Connections - an 8-page recruitment guide on engineering apprenticeships - was officially launched by Mr Brian Wilson MP and published following an employer drive led by the Scottish Enterprise Skills Directorate, Scottish Engineering and the Engineering Employers' Federation.

Aimed at young students, the guide lists vacancies for Modern Apprenticeships in every sector from micro-electronics to shipbuilding and is currently being circulated to every college and school in the country.

Further Education

8.6 Many young people choose to move to full-time further education after leaving school. Approximately one fifth of students in the FE colleges are in the 16-18 age group. FE colleges offer good opportunities with employers to bring together training and work-related education for young people. Through building good relationships with local employers, they are able to offer students valuable work experience to complement high quality teaching. In courses such as Social

Care and Child Care students benefit from spending a substantial part of their course in real work places. Students benefit too from employers' involvement in designing effective courses to meet the challenges of the work environment.

James Watt College: Electronics and Mechatronics

The National Certificate programme in Electronics and the General Scottish Vocational Qualification programme in Mechatronics, delivered by James Watt College, prepare school leavers for entry to the electronics industry and assist major employers to continue to recruit and train young people to meet the industry's requirements.

The success of the programmes derives from:

close collaboration between college and major employers which ensures that programmes meet employers' needs; commonality among programmes taken by school pupils attending college part-time; those taken by full-time students; those taken by Modern Apprentices as part of first-year, off-the-job, integrated education and training programmes in the college; integrated education and training, which allows Modern Apprentices to gain within the first year in the college, an SVQ at levels 1 and 2 together with a GSVQ or NC award. Trainees therefore develop both practical skills and theoretical knowledge which prepare them well for progression in the workplace. Following the first year in the college, Modern Apprentices progressively develop a well balanced mix of practical skills and underpinning knowledge. Typically they achieve an SVQ level 3 in the workplace and in parallel with this, an HNC in Mechatronics or Electronics by part-time study at the college; and support from the local enterprise company for the integrated education and training programme for Modern Apprentices.

8.7 We welcome such initiatives and want to see them continued and strengthened. It is vital that young people who have not yet entered the job market should have ready access to further education opportunities which reflect local, regional and national labour market needs - opportunities to improve their sustainable employment prospects.

Increasing participation and attainment among 16-18 year olds

8.8 We have looked closely at the diverse learning needs of the 16-18 group, and in particular those who are not moving on to higher education. Some will not yet have achieved the equivalent of a Level 2 qualification; others will still be aiming for Highers or a SVQ Level 3. At the same time they should all be thinking about future job opportunities.

8.9 Higher Still will enhance opportunities for this group at school or college by breaking down the barriers between academic and vocational education. We believe that there is also a case for exploring other approaches to increasing participation and attainment among this age group.

Fast Trac

Fife Enterprise and the 4 local FE colleges have piloted an innovative approach to integrated funding for further education and training for 16-18 year-olds. This model - called Fast Trac combines a single administration and funding system with a unified approach to promoting learning opportunities. To date, Fast Trac has exceeded the original targets for increasing the number of 16 and 17 year olds taking up opportunities for further education and training.

8.10 The Fast Trac experience shows one approach to improving access and opportunity for 16-18 year olds. Recent developments in the FE sector, including the potential for developing a strategic framework, may suggest other approaches. We have decided to consult with the FE sector, enterprise networks and the Careers Service on how to increase participation and attainment. We will launch the consultation exercise at a national conference in the autumn. The conference will give all interested parties the opportunity to hear about the evaluation of Fast Trac and will stimulate informed debate about the way ahead.

8.11 The Government is very much aware that young people from low income families face particular problems when it comes to making choices about staying in education or training after age 16. We have now decided to test the merits of a means tested Education Maintenance Allowance for 16-18 year-olds. From September 1999 we will be setting up pilots in selected areas testing how far participation can be increased. Details of the pilots will be announced in the Autumn.

Young people with special needs

8.12 Our biggest challenge lies with the young people who need additional support to gain access to education and training and to achieve qualifications. This group has a range of needs from physical disabilities and learning difficulties to social, emotional and behavioural problems. The last group are often those who become persistent truants and who leave school with poor basic skills and no qualifications. All are at risk of social exclusion.

8.13 We have set up a an Advisory Committee under the chairmanship of Robert Beattie of IBM to review the whole range of post-school education and training for young people who need additional support to participate in further education or training and ultimately move into employment. Our goal is to improve links between different types of provision and to enhance the range of opportunities open to young people. This will include linkages between formal and informal provision and the need for cross-sectoral planning. The Committee should complete its work in Spring 1999.

8.14 In the meantime we have:

commissioned, together with Scottish Enterprise and Highlands and Islands Enterprise, a national research study into assessment practice and procedures. Assessment is the key to identifying the right provision to meet the needs of the individual - improving this part of the process should improve our service to young people with special needs; and asked careers service companies to focus their efforts on disaffected young people; where possible, they will do this in partnership with others with knowledge and understanding of the needs of disadvantaged groups.