Editorial Comment:

Focus

This report is an outcome of a detailed study commissioned by the Department for Education and Employment in 1995 to provide baseline information on the careers education and guidance provision made by schools and careers services for students in Years 9 and 10. At the time of the study, as a key element of its strategy to secure informed subject choice for students in Year 9, and to facilitate effective preparation for careers guidance interviews and action planning for those in Year 10, the DfEE had begun to fund enhanced guidance for 13 and 14 year olds. This baseline study focuses on:

• Establishing the provision which had been made for young people prior to the introduction of enhanced funding for guidance;
• The careers-related outcomes for students who completed Year 9 or 10 in the summer of the academic year 1994/95;
• The early changes to provision, which had taken, place since the Year 9 and 10 initiative was introduced in the 1994/95 academic years.

The report draws on survey data and information obtained during interviews in 40 selected schools in 15 different careers service areas. In all, interviews were conducted with 205 people, including senior careers service staff, careers advisers and teachers. In addition, data on their careers-related experiences, attitudes and understanding was collected from 7104 students who had recently completed Year 9 or Year 10 in the 40 schools.

Findings

• School provision in Year 9 focused on activities to develop students’ self-awareness and decision-making skills, while Year 10 programmes included more work on opportunity awareness and transition skills. However, there was little evidence of continuity and progression in careers education and guidance programmes.
• Students in Year 9 were generally involved in an average of five careers-related activities, with careers advisers contributing to no more than three of these. Students in Year 10 were involved in more activities (an average of seven) and were likely to have had more contact with careers advisers than younger students. However, the amount of time allocated to any one of these activities was limited and, in many cases, would have been little more than twenty minutes per activity.
• The careers education and guidance activities and discussions in which young people had taken part had contributed to the development of a range of careers-related skills:
• 61% of the young people had a high level of self-awareness in relation to their ability to identify their core skills;
• 19% had developed a high level of careers-related research skills;
• 18% had a high level of opportunity awareness.
• 29% felt very confident in their level of transition skills
• Three quarters of the students indicated a preferred career destination, but only 48% had developed a high level of decision-making skills
• Half of the students in the survey indicated a high level of satisfaction with both the subject decisions they had made in Year 9 and the help they had been given in making them. The information from the students who were most content with their subject choices suggests that there is a significant role to be played by careers advisers and schools in collaboratively devising and delivering subject-choice programmes.
• In all 19% of the students demonstrated a high level of openness to further guidance.

The evidence from young people suggests that four factors (individual discussions, specialist input, contact with careers advisers and the provision of facilities for individual research) were particularly significant in contributing to the development of young people’s careers-relates skills. Some of these elements had begun to be addressed as a result of the Year 9 and 10 funding