Connexions, the youth careers advice service, is being closed down and will not be replaced until September
Ministers are depriving up to two million teenagers of careers advice at a time of rising youth unemployment and record competition for university places, headteachers have warned.
The Association of School & College Leaders (ASCL), which represents 15,000 headteachers, is furious that the government is waiting until September next year to set up its new national careers service for all ages.
In the meantime, state-sponsored careers advice centres for teenagers and young adults ? known as Connexions ? are closing across the country because councils say central government has not given them enough funds to keep them going.
Connexions advisers help 13- to 25-year-olds to make decisions about their careers and whether to continue with their education. They are aimed particularly at teenagers in danger of dropping out of education and training. Some estimate that a quarter of the centres have already closed ? including in Somerset, Nottinghamshire and Northumberland ? and that savage cuts have been made at many others.
The government countered by saying that the standard of careers advice offered to teenagers has been patchy and that the new all-age careers service will give specialist, impartial guidance.
But headteachers warn that they rely on Connexions to give advice to their pupils and that until its replacement is set up, England's two million 16- to 19-year-olds will have nowhere to go to seek expert careers help.
Many schools are about to have their budgets cut and are preparing to make redundancies. Heads argue they cannot afford to pay for independent careers advisers and that their teachers lack the expertise pupils need to give impartial guidance. To compound the problem, an education bill making its way through parliament makes it a requirement for schools to give their pupils access to professional careers guidance up to the age of 16.
It comes as figures last month showed the number of 16- to 24-year-olds not in education, work or training in England had hit a record year-on-year high at the end of last year.
Meanwhile, the rise in tuition fees has caused a race for applicants to gain a place at university before the increased fees are introduced in September 2012.
Brian Lightman, general secretary of ASCL, said a lack of an immediate replacement for Connexions "risked social mobility".
"It has never been more necessary for teenagers to have impartial careers guidance, he warned. "And yet Connexions services are being dismantled around the country and the all-age careers advisory service is in a very early stage of development." He said teachers had been unable to find out any information about it. "We need to know where young people are supposed to get this advice from in the meantime.
"Teachers are not professional careers advisers. I could give advice about going to university, but I went in the 1970s and this wouldn't be appropriate for those pupils hoping to go to university in 2012. The idea that schools can just go out to buy independent careers advisers is wrong. What are they going to buy it with and how will they know that the career advice is good quality and impartial?"
Michael Gove, the education secretary, said schools were "very well placed to provide careers advice".
"Independent schools use a wide range of services and advice. We know that Connexions hasn't been effective," he said.
? An MP has discovered that ministers in the Department for Education have a backlog of 494 politicians' questions they have not yet answered. Ian Mearns, a Labour MP for Gateshead who is on the cross-party education select committee, said Gove's department had the most unanswered questions of any government department and one dates back to September last year. He said it was the duty of ministers to answer questions that were tabled by MPs. The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has just 16 questions outstanding.
"It would be easy to draw the conclusion that the secretary of state and his department do not place any importance on the role of members of the House in representing their constituents and the hundreds of organisations, who contact us as a matter of course," Mearns said.
"If, of course, I'm wrong about the importance he places on members' duties, then another conclusion that could be drawn is one of incompetence. That in itself begs a whole range of other questions."
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2011/mar/13/warning-on-cuts-to-careers-advice-to-teenagers
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