EMPLOYER ENGAGEMENT Tweets of the week onnections


chances of pupils connecting with people working in areas which they are genuinely interested in and taking away from them lessons for life.


Confidence


One disappointing result from the YouGov survey was that only seven per cent of young adults recalled four or more employer contacts while they were in education (between the ages of 14 and 19). And while statistical analysis shows that the success of these young people in navigating their way into the labour market was not connected to the qualifications they obtained or the type of school they attended, young people who went to independent schools typically felt that the employer contacts they had at school were of much greater value to them than was the case with their peers who had attended non-selective state schools. It is this analysis which has led the Taskforce and


its partners, including many of the major teaching and leadership unions, to search for new means to make it quick and easy for state schools to find employee volunteers, from apprentice to CEO, willing to come in occasionally to talk about their job and the route they took into it. Inspiring the Future is already open for registrations


from schools and employers and begins operating later this year. Dozens of employers, including the NHS, the Civil Service, Virgin Trains, Pearson, MITIE and the Children’s Society are already actively encouraging their staff to sign up. They are doing so, in large part, because it makes a difference to their bottom line. Just as young people struggle to go into the jobs


market with the right range of skills, qualifications and experience, so too employers often struggle to find the people they are looking for. If they do find the right people, productivity can be expected to increase and this helps to explain the wage premiums described above. On both sides, there is much to gain. A lot of a little can go a long way to achieve shared goals.


SecEd


• Dr Anthony Mann is director of policy and research at the Education and Employers Taskforce. He is an associate fellow of the Centre for Education and Industry at the University of Warwick and sits on advisory boards for the National Foundation for Educational Research and the Institute of Education.


Further information


• You can download It’s Who You Meet online: www.educationandemployers.org/research.aspx • Inspiring the Future: www.inspiringthefuture.org


and beyond equipping young people with the best possible set of qualifications. The International Labor Organisation, for example,


has highlighted the fact that, compared to older workers, young people “have less work experience; ... less knowledge about how and where to look for work; and, ... have fewer contacts upon which to call”. In 2010, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation


and Development (OECD) published two key reviews on youth unemployment. The reviews, which drew on 17 country studies, argued that education systems which combined study with workplace exposure, as is common in the German and Canadian youth apprenticeship systems, provided young people with best preparations for working life. While the construction of strong vocational


educational pathways has historically proved an impossible challenge to the more liberal, unco- ordinated and largely academically focused British education systems, insights from the OECD reviews suggest that employer engagement alone serves to ease the transition of young people from school to work regardless of the vocational design of learning programme. As the reviewers who undertook the OECD


Learning for Jobs study concluded, all schools “should encourage an understanding of the world of work from the earliest years, backed by visits to workplaces and workplace experience. Research studies suggest that young people particularly value information on jobs and careers if obtained in a real workplace and through contacts with working people. Through such experience young people can be introduced to some of the choices they will face in their professional and learning pathways”. Wider UK and US research shows why such experience can be of such a profound importance to


qualifications are struggling to find their footing in the jobs market. More than half of the one million young Britons who are NEET achieved the


‘


equivalent of five GCSEs or more and a quarter are educated to A level or degree standard


SecEd • March 1 2012 ’


young people. The argument is very simple and well evidenced. Good quality research projects which track individuals through childhood into adult life show that teenagers who are uncertain or unrealistic about their career aspirations at 16 work less and if in work, earn less, than their peers in early adulthood, even after their qualification levels are taken into account. As many teachers will attest, young people are


especially attentive to the working professionals they come into contact with. They hear them in a different way from school staff, and when polled, agree in large numbers that contacts, whether in work experience or short careers talks, helped them to make decisions about their career goals and routes into them. In this way, a large number of contacts can give


young people better understandings of what and where to study and what experience is most useful to acquire to achieve a desirable aspiration. Where managed through strong professional careers advice, the benefits will be greatest. More than this, the contacts made can often lead


to paid work experience in a career sector of choice while still in education and can be used in university applications to show insight into the careers related to courses of study. Consequently, even quite short activities can have a


big impact. The YouGov survey asked young adults, for example, if they recalled careers talks from employers whilst in school and found that some 80 per cent of those who heard from three or more employers agreed that the experience helped them in deciding on a career, getting a job after education, and/or getting into higher education – with one in four saying it help a lot. By contrast, only 60 per cent of those who spoke


to just one or two employers found the experience as useful with one in 10 saying it helped a lot. A well- timed careers’ fair or networking event maximises the


Even those young people with good


With a single ParentMail account parents can receive messages, calendar notifi cations, give consent and make payments to their school, nursery and every other club their children attend – all from their mobile or computer.


ParentMail 2, it changes everything. Call us now for a demonstration on 0844 356 0000.


Connecting schools and parents www.parentmail.co.uk info@parentmail.co.uk Tel: 0844 356 0000


Education minster Michael Gove says an Adoption Action Plan will be published next month outlining proposals to speed up a system which has seen adoptions fall by 17 per cent in 10 years. He said he will stop adoptions being held up or prevented on grounds of ethnicity.


“Michael Gove’s comments on race in adoption proving the old adage that even a stopped clock is right twice


a day.” @dhothersall


“Rather proud of the old man for this.” @SarahVine (his wife)


“Encouraged by suggestion that local authorities & voluntary adoption agencies


work more collaboratively.” @SFCS_adoption


“Is it my imagination or has he finally found a policy that


makes sense?” @mittfh


“Great news. Will the government set deadline?” @SorayaKishtwari


Follow our Tweets @SecEd_Education


Even better for schools… and even better for parents


ParentMail’s next generation, parental engagement service takes school-to-home communications to a whole new level.


9


Free App for parents


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16