Editorial Comment:

The Code of Practice for the assurance of academic quality and standards in higher education: career education, information and guidance (CEIG) is intended to help higher education institutions ensure that they are meeting students' expectations of their preparedness for their future career, and that they are producing graduates equipped to meet the demands of current and future employment markets. It does so by seeking to ensure that institutions have a strategy for CEIG that is adequately quality assured.

It is becoming increasingly important for students and graduates to take personal responsibility for managing their own career development. Career guidance is one essential component of the overall support which students need. There is, however, an important interrelationship between career education, information and guidance and the development of employability and career management skills. The role of higher education career services has been expanding in response to these trends and the scope of the code therefore encompasses career education and information, as well as guidance.

Comments

The QAA's focus is on careers education, information and guidance as being inherently good, fulfilling a vital role in ensuring graduates make a successful transition into employment. The guidelines do not sight any evidence that effective guidance leads to employment or why it is that they believe that guidance is good. Although universities have to submit their first destinations statistics to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, these figures only monitor what graduates are doing 6 months after graduation. Data on whether the students received effective guidance is not required by HESA so it is not possible to establish whether there is a correlation between guidance and early employability.