Higher quality career guidance on the agenda (From Hillingdon Times)

Higher quality career guidance on the agenda

12:21pm Thursday 28th January 2010

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A new taskforce has launched with the aim of ensuring skilled and motivated careers professionals give all young people high-quality advice.

The taskforce, which will report its findings to the Government this summer, will look at a number of areas including: recruitment and retention of well-qualified careers professionals, ensuring that the profession is diverse and reflects the make-up of the working population, and whether all career specialists should hold a specialist qualification.

The taskforce, led by Dame Ruth Silver, chair of the Learning and Skills and Improvement Service, will have members drawn from a range of places, including professional bodies, employers and academia.

“Our careers professionals are vital to ensuring all young people get the good advice they need to make well-informed, thought-through choices and plans that enable them to progress smoothly into further learning and work, now and in the future,” Dame Ruth Silver said.

“Developing the capacity of the workforce to deliver effective programmes of careers education and personalised Information, Advice and Guidance (IAG) for the future is central to success.

“IAG and effective careers advice is also key to improving social mobility and reducing inequality, by helping those from disadvantaged backgrounds to raise their horizons and by giving them the support they need to fulfil their potential. There is no reason why any child should not receive that support.”

Quality, Choice and Aspiration, the IAG strategy published by the Department for Children, Schools and Families in October 2009, recognised that the quality of IAG provision varies throughout the country. The Government is looking for this to improve across the country, so will review the quality and effectiveness of local authorities’ delivery of IAG in 2011.

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