Editorial Comment:

Focus of Study

The NCIHE was appointed in May 1996 to make recommendations on how the purposes, shape, structure, size and funding of higher education, including support for students, should develop to meet the needs of the United Kingdom over the next 20 years. The Committee was explicitly asked to recognise that higher education embraces teaching, learning, scholarship and research.

Key Findings

The NCIHE made extensive recommendations but recommendations 11 and 12 refer specifically to the role of careers education and guidance:

Recommendation 11

NCIHE recommends that: Institutions of higher education, over the medium-term, integrate their careers services more fully into academic affairs and that the provision of careers education and guidance is reviewed periodically by the Quality Assurance Agency.

The Government, in the medium to long-term, should integrate careers advice for lifelong learning, to complement services based inside higher education institutions.

Recommendation 12

NCIHE recommends to students’ unions and institutions that they review, on a regular basis, the services offered to their students and adapt them as necessary, in particular to meet the needs of part-time students.

The Committee took their steer for these recommendations from a number of sources including the National Union of Students and unpublished evidence from the Higher Education Quality Council (HEQC) that concluded: Guidance and learner support is an important area of quality that affects student choice and learner autonomy, the development of general skills and the enhancement of effective teaching and learning

The recommendations were designed to: Raise the profile that learner support has in some, particularly large, institutions. Ensure guidance is learner-centred, confidential, impartial, equitable and accessible.

The Committee undertook a student survey that demonstrated that students are motivated to enter higher education by the desire to improve their labour market prospects. Careers advice is therefore essential.

The Committee reports that the role of careers guidance practitioners in HE is two-fold: to provide advice and assistance to students; and to make a contribution to the development of academic programmes, including work placements.

The Committee strongly suggests that careers services in HE institutions have a role in helping to address shortages such as those being experienced by the teaching and engineering professions. The Committee also suggests that the role of careers advisers in assisting graduates to set up their own business will become increasingly important.

Additional comment The NCIHE acknowledges that in order for students to be ‘work-ready’ on graduation they must have received information, advice and guidance on career development, career management as well as skills development. The Committee also makes very explicit the role careers advice has in addressing skills shortages. The Committee does not acknowledge that careers guidance has a role in combating retention problems, rather this is implicitly seen as the role of other support services such as the Students’ Union who offer advice on finance, childcare, health and other non-academic related matters that are widely regarded as major influencing factors on student drop out.