Executive summary
Across the world, on average young people are entering the labour market more highly qualified than ever before, but still they are seen to struggle in their attempts to achieve smooth transitions from education into fulfilling employment. In this light, many countries are reviewing career guidance systems designed to help students better prepare for their working lives. The longer young people stay in education, the more decisions they have to make about what they study, where they study and how hard they apply themselves. Moreover, such decisions are becoming more challenging as the labour market itself becomes more uncertain and precarious. Historically, policy making in this field has been constrained by lack of strong quantitative evidence on how career guidance activities can most effectively enhance the employment outcomes of youth. In recent years however, the emergence of substantial new data has provided governments with the opportunity to review and benchmark their school career guidance against international best practice.
This report reviews teenage career development in the US Commonwealth of Virginia. It is the first in a series of studies that explore how effectively, efficiently and equitably guidance systems are preparing secondary school students for their working lives. Benchmarking reviews draw on newly available longitudinal data from 10 countries, including the United States, that reveal statistically significant relationships between teenagers’ participation in different forms of career development and better employment outcomes at age 25. Such benefits are associated with the ways in which students (typically at age 15) explore, experience and think about their potential futures in work. Data from the OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) allows assessments of the comparative teenage career readiness by measuring such indicators across countries.
In this review, new data was collected from a survey of 9 333 students aged 15-17 (Grades 10 and 11), enabling benchmarking against international practice as captured in PISA. Additionally, 1 100 young adults aged 19 to 26 who had attended secondary school in Virginia were surveyed about both the character of their current labour market participation and their recollections of school experiences of career guidance. This user survey provides insight into the success of the school guidance system in preparing young people for their transitions into working life. The study also benefited from considerable sharing of policy and practice from Virginia’s Department for Education and its agencies, and a study visit from the OECD research team which engaged with multiple stakeholders involved in the development and delivery of guidance provision within the state.
The review identifies many strengths within Virginian practice. Career development is a high policy priority. The state expects all students to engage in programmes of career exploration, articulating academic and career plans as they progress through secondary education. It also offers students a range of institutional and pathway approaches (notably through well-developed career and technical education) which enable the supported exploration of economic sectors of potential interest to students. The ratio of students to guidance counsellors is low compared to other states.
The student survey found that respondents were commonly serious about their future employment plans, but concerned as to whether the support received from their schools was sufficient to their needs. Benchmarking participation in key career development activities against international practice reveals that Virginian students do often engage less intensely in guidance activities than peers in other countries, notably with regard to activities associated most strongly with better employment outcomes. Virginia students demonstrate high comparative levels of uncertainty and confusion about their career plans. However, participation in career development, notably first-hand experiences of the world of work, is associated with more beneficial forms of career thinking. Beneficial effects of teenage career development can also be identified in the survey of young adults with regression analysis finding teenage career exploration and especially work-based experiences to be strongly associated with better employment outcomes. However, the survey confirms relatively low historic levels of engagement in such activities. The analysis also reveals patterns of inequalities, notably linked to the social background and residency of students and challenges in labour market signalling, particularly with regard to awareness and interest in the skilled trades.
Through detailed discussion, the study reviews Virginia’s career readiness systems across three thematic areas:
Effectiveness: the engagement of students in forms of career development that can most confidently be associated with better employment outcomes.
Efficiency: the extent to which student career development is informed by understanding of the economic and labour market opportunities while minimising unnecessary navigation time and waste of resources.
Equitability: the extent to which young people’s transitions are enabled through equal and targeted access to opportunities and by empowering marginalised youth to build human, social and cultural capital necessary for effective transitions into employment.
The study concludes by highlighting seven recommendations for consideration:
1. Virginia should consider systematising and monitoring the implementation of career readiness instruments to strengthen effective provision.
2. Virginia should consider revising and updating its K-12 framework for career readiness.
3. Virginia should consider further increasing the quantity of relevant staff in part by easing regulations in recruitment to strengthen career readiness efforts.
4. Virginia should consider adopting new approaches to encouraging and enabling employers and people in work to engage with schools to provide students with systemic, consistent and diverse exposure to the working world.
5. Virginia should consider introducing new means of deepening and broadening the exposure of students to the skilled trades from an earlier age, through career guidance interventions and work-based learning.
6. Virginia should consider providing greater support to students facing additional barriers within career development and labour market participation to create more equitable outcomes for youth.
7. Virginia should consider ways in which it can take greater advantage of digital technologies, notably to address geographic variations in access to career development.
Each recommendation is discussed based on the character of challenges within the state and relevant examples of international practice for the consideration of policy makers, practitioners, and researchers.