26th February 2019
New research shows just 12% of teens think careers are the education system's biggest focus.
Careers are definitely not the education system's biggest focus say 13-16 year olds.
In a survey of 1000 teenagers commissioned by the Career Colleges Trust, only 12% think their future career is the education system's biggest focus.
In fact, two thirds of the young teens think that grades and league tables are the main focus.
Barking & Dagenham College surveyed 261 of its own students with the same question about what the education system’s biggest focus is and saw markedly different results: 43% of its students think careers are the biggest focus.
The College’s Principal & CEO Yvonne Kelly is unequivocal in her response: “The results don’t surprise me at all. Further education colleges are united in having a very clear goal to improve the life chances and careers opportunities of our learners.
“In addition to developing technical vocational skills, our students are taught vital work skills including soft skills, such as problem solving and teamwork which are essential to help them to succeed in the workplace.”
Barking & Dagenham College students Precious Serwaa-Kusi and Sophie Habberley were both named as the winners in the first round of a competition run by Career Colleges Trust, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and the Samaritans recently. Sophie says: “Being in the Career College and getting to work on projects such as the AWS/Samaritans one has made me more confident. I know I will gain technical skills throughout this project like public speaking and presentation skills. It gives me something very good to put on my CV too. I’m really glad to have got this opportunity.”
After finishing her course, Precious is planning to go to university to study software engineering. Sophie would either like to go to university to study software engineering or do an apprenticeship in software engineering.
