These role models share their career insights to better inform young people about the world of work so they can make better decisions about their future careers. We do this to improve the employment chances of young people and support businesses in developing their talent pipeline.
We are therefore proud to be invited to lead on a work group as part of a non-partisan, Cross Party Discussion Forum on lifelong learning in careers education.
In July 2021 Philip Virgo, Policy Advisor, led a webinar on “How do we give the skills of the future to millions whose education has been disrupted and jobs destroyed?” after which F4S were invited to lead on the workstream of ‘Helping Employers make sense of lifelong career education, and which initiatives to support’.
In a world that has changed beyond recognition in many ways over the past 2 years, we welcome the opportunity to drive forward this work to help employers make sense of, and get involved in, the career education landscape in schools and colleges.
To this end we have designed 2 surveys for employers to participate in to help us gather insights into the subject. To ensure alignment between education and industry we have used the same terminology as the Careers and Enterprise Company to facilitate data sharing and make collation easier. Longer term, the group will seek to drive policy to re-visit existing funding and support to encourage even more uptake of life long learning in career education. The findings will be considered by ministers and the Government.
The findings from the surveys will shape understanding of the issue and allow us to recommend initiatives, breaking down these barriers and identify improved ways to communicate engagement opportunities thereby continuing to improve the life chances of young people.
We will be sharing our findings via newsletters and blogs and will make them accessible upon request so that you can reference them where appropriate.