Chapter 5. Theme 2: Efficient career readiness: Aligning career development activities with labour market opportunities in Virginia
This chapter assesses the efficiency dimension of the career readiness system in Virginia (the United States). It presents Virginia’s strengths and explores challenges, concluding with a set of policy recommendations to better align career development activities with labour market opportunities.
The chapter integrates and builds upon data analysis from Chapter 3, which presents the results of the OECD Career Readiness Survey of Young Adults (aged 19-26) and Teenagers (aged 15-16). It focuses on the labour market linkages in provision of career development activities in Virginia and provides examples of practices from other jurisdictions that can help address those gaps.
Virginia emphasises the responsiveness of its education system, notably at High School level, in relation to labour market opportunities in various ways. The ‘responsiveness’ component in the career readiness system enriches the choices and pathways available to students and helps them to make informed choices. At the heart of effective labour market signalling, is the active engagement of employers in the career development of students. Virginia has been proactive in encouraging and enabling collaboration with the economic community, especially through the provision of work-based learning (WBL) opportunities, but current levels of employer engagement are insufficient to meet student needs.
Engaging employers to increase, strengthen, expand and promote WBL opportunities, setting up systemic and consistent collaboration among key stakeholders
Recommendation 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.
Employer engagement is an essential component of effective career development. Considerable opportunity exists in Virginia to strengthen the engagement of employers and people in work in the career development of students. Student participation in WBL activities in Virginia is also low compared to other states and many other countries. For example, 18% of CTE concentrators in Virginia participate in work-based learning compared to 38% in Georgia in 2020-21. The OECD Career Readiness Surveys also confirm that in comparison to international practice job shadowing, worksite visits and internships are particularly weak in Virginia. While many CTE programmes currently provide excellent examples of provision enriched by strong employer engagement, this is not always the case.
In this context, Virginia should consider additional mechanisms, from Elementary through to High School, for encouraging and enabling the enrichment of career development by employers and people in work. A first step for Virginia would be to make the business case to employers and people in work as to why they would benefit from engaging with schools to support guidance activities. Longitudinal studies show that greater levels of teenage career readiness are associated with lower unemployment rates, higher wages, and greater job satisfaction in young adulthood – all indications of better matching in the early labour market, underpinning more fulfilling employment for the individual and greater productivity for the employer. Secondly, Virginia should consider removing barriers that prevent the provision of and participation in employer engagement activities.
There are several examples that can inspire Virginia to increase, strengthen, expand, and promote employer engagement within guidance. More efficient models are based on governance and design principles which bring together government, educators and employers/professional bodies to share ownership and enable efficient delivery. There are many examples that can inspire Virginia to increase, strengthen, expand, and promote opportunities. Elementary level is not too early to begin career development enriched by employer engagement. It is not a matter of requiring students to select a career for their adult lives, but helping them to broaden their understanding of the world of work through enjoyable and engaging encounters with working people and employers, so enriching learning and personal development while challenging stereotypical thinking (which begins as young as five) that may not be representative of the modern working world. A number of countries have introduced models for engaging children at a younger age worthy of consideration within Virginia.
Collaboration and coordination between stakeholders are key to operating a career readiness system given that the system lies at the intersection of education and workforce development. While collaboration between schools, employers and communities and coordination among state agencies is happening, there is a tendency for this to be in an ad hoc fashion and is shaped by the capacity of the school, division, agency and employer. Greater clarity on expectations, as articulated in a revised set of standards/framework will enable stronger local cultures of collaboration.
A more formalised, systemic and consistent collaboration to support career readiness would remove barriers to improvement. Evidence shows that increasing employer engagement enhances the quality and quantity of career guidance and this is now widely seen as an essential characteristic of an effective guidance system. Students who interact more with employers tend to participate more regularly in career development activities and can expect better employment outcomes than comparable peers. Virginia is aware of the importance of employer engagement, and it is increasing, but significant opportunities for improvement remain. Examples that can be helpful to improve Virginia’s approach include Inspiring the Future in the UK and New Zealand that provides secondary school students with opportunities to identify and connect with volunteers from different backgrounds who work in a wide and diverse range of careers through career talks, job fairs, mentoring, job shadowing, interview practice and CV workshops. Inspiring the Future makes use of online technologies to make it quick and easy for employers and volunteers to make themselves available to schools to support career development in different ways. Such an approach would allow for state-wide campaigns to connect employers and people in work with local schools which would themselves decide how to best make use of their voluntary engagement. By adopting a state-wide approach, opportunity exists moreover to provide employers in strategically important economic sectors experiencing skills shortages with a simple means to better amplify career opportunities to young people through state-wide campaigns. Other models also exist operating on more traditional lines, brokering relationships between schools and employers by sector or geographic location. In New Brunswick (Canada), Centres for Excellence help schools to connect with employers in relation to four strategically important areas of economic activity.
Strengthen career development activities that lead to aspiration for skilled employment
Recommendation 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 WBL.
The skilledtTrades (construction and manufacturing) is one of Virginia’s most in-demand industries. Such professions offer many attractive careers, but student interest is limited. As is the case across the United States, interest in those professions among teenage students is low by international comparison. Only 9% of surveyed teenagers in Virginia with a clear idea of their occupational expectation, named a medium-skilled occupation.
While CTE and co-operative education programmes in Virginia offer valuable introductions to skilled employment, opportunity exists to expand student interest. Lack of interest may be for one of two reasons. Students may not have a fully informed understanding of relevant professions and decide that their career ambitions lie elsewhere. Alternatively, it is possible that student understanding is partial and insufficient to make an informed decision about CTE provision or the professions to which it is related. While the education system has limited capacity to address the attractiveness of occupations, it can (in collaboration with the business community) take steps to address information asymmetry. Here, scope exists to broaden and deepen student understanding of careers to which CTE and co-operative education provision commonly provides access. Notably, during Middle School (before important decisions are made concerning more vocationally-focused pathways through secondary education), it is possible to expand potential interest in fields commonly entered without the need for a four-year university degree. By providing students with the opportunity to see the actual careers behind the CTE courses, through programmes of career talks, job fairs, workplace visits and digital tools, opportunity exists to broaden career interests and address potentially erroneous assumptions. Within High School, the expansion of WBL opportunities will provide students with deeper, first-hand experiences of potential future employment and access to social networks which can facilitate progression into employment. Such an objective would be facilitated through the availability of state-wide mechanisms that enable schools across the Commonwealth to connect employers and employee volunteers. Efforts can also made to better inform parents about the realities of employment in the skilledtTrades.
School provision in Virginia can do more to help young people in the process of identifying and applying for apprenticeship and training programmes while students are still in school. In all, 43% of young adults agreed that they would have welcomed a lot more help (and a further 37% wishing that they had had some more help) from their school in understanding ‘how to get a formal job training program or apprenticeship’. Given the reputational challenges often associated with vocational programmes, it is important that students have opportunity to understand the careers to which they relate. This can be expected to be of particular importance to students from backgrounds which are underrepresented in such professions.
A number of models exist for consideration, including the Baker Clause in the UK which places a legal requirement for schools to enable stronger access to providers of post-secondary vocational training, and programmes in Australia which make it easy to invite apprentices into schools to talk about their experiences. Other approaches are also described in this report.
This chapter looks at how the career readiness system in Virginia can help improve the career planning of young people by better amplifying patterns of demand within the state’s labour market. Efficient career readiness systems provide students with an informed understanding of how education and training provision relates to employment opportunities. They serve to amplify changing patterns of demand within the labour market providing students with realistic insights into different forms of employment.
Strengths of Virginia
Virginia emphasises the labour market responsiveness of the K-12 system and reliable, accessible and relevant labour market information
Virginia emphasises the responsiveness of the K-12 system in relation to labour market opportunities and labour market signalling. In order to help students make informed choices, Virginia provides a list of high-demand and high-paying occupations and information on what pathways lead to those occupations, how to access those pathways, and what their outcomes are. This ‘responsiveness’ component in the career readiness system enriches the choices and pathways available to students. With the support of regularly updated labour market data, career development activities can help students make career choices that not only match their aspiration, interests, aptitudes, and abilities (Hoferi, Zhivkovikj and Smyth, 2020[1]), but which are also in demand.
One of Virginia’s approaches to strengthening college and career readiness is to provide “reliable and transparent information” about career pathways, including where these pathways lead, how much each pathway costs to follow, what qualifications and skills are required, and what the gains are in terms of employment and wages. This approach also aims to increase communication with both students and parents in order to raise awareness of alternative pathways to college or university degree enrolment and emphasise that these diverse pathways can also lead to stable and skilled employment with high wages.
Using this approach, the Virginia Office of Education and Economics (VOEE) built a data platform to provide uniform, reliable and accessible labour market data and evidence to inform and update career readiness efforts including CTE. With recent initiatives, such as hiring WBL Specialists at the regional level and requiring students to graduate with industry-recognised credentials, there is a recognition that schools and employers need to work more closely to support each other to better support students while addressing labour market shortages. VOEE creates a linkage between education and WFD and is trying to provide a uniform regional labour market information system that includes labour supply and demand as well as return on educational investments.
SCHEV administers the Workforce Credential Grant programme, which is designed to create and sustain a supply of credentialed workers to fill high-demand occupations. This grant programme provides a pay-for-performance model for funding a non-credit, non-degree workforce training that leads to a credential in a high-demand field. High school students can get a certificate through this grant programme (VDOE, 2022[2]).
In addition, as discussed in Chapter 2., workforce development efforts are being consolidated, which is expected to increase the connection between K-12 and the WBL. A new Department of Workforce Development and Advancement (DWFDA) is being created under the Secretary of Labor to consolidate existing WFD programmes, evaluation and data. VOEE is playing a role here to consolidate data.
Employers appear ready to be involved in contributing to career readiness in Virginia
The business community and wider employers in Virginia appear ready to be involved in contributing to implementing career readiness strategies and programmes, especially through providing WBL opportunities. This proactive stance from employers is partly due to the urgency in building the needed workforce, the foremost challenge for employers in the private and public sectors. Many initiatives are built to secure sufficient flows of talent. Larger industries or businesses in Virginia have established relationships with schools and offer a variety of opportunities such as apprenticeships and internships, although these opportunities often come after high school graduation due to age and safety restrictions.
There are several ways that employers in Virginia engage in CTE. Importantly, the VDOE collaborates with business and industry partners to develop CTE programmes and align these programmes with current workforce needs. Through these partnerships, employers engage directly with CTE teachers and students to offer real-world experiences. Employers serve on local CTE advisory committees, which aim to provide guidance and support for CTE programmes, including curriculum development, teacher training, and WBL opportunities. Employers can apply to join advisory committees, or they are appointed by local education agencies or VDOE. Employers participate in industry-specific advisory committees that provide guidance on CTE programmes related to their particular field or industry.
Employer input is already needed in many processes in the career readiness system. For example, when requesting VDOE approval of new CTE programmes or courses, school divisions must get approval prior to including any budget items in the CTE Local Plan and Budget Application. This application for a new CTE programme or course requires labour market and employment needs data, including information on future employment growth of relevant occupations and how they relate to the proposed programme or course request (see Application for New Career And Technical Education Program/Course; CTE Trailblazers).
There are also innovative ideas happening and a great deal of interest by larger industries to reach students from a younger age to present opportunities prior to them making a decision on their career pathway. For example, companies can launch competitions for students through Career and Technical Student Organizations (Box 2.1, Chapter 2.). Similarly, the Virginia Chambers of Commerce runs semester-long projects that offer high school students the opportunity to collaborate with industry partners to investigate and solve real-world issues relevant to business, called the K-12 Innovation Challenges. Industry partners present a challenge each year to the student teams and provide an overview of available resources, and also serve as competition mentors for schools in their region during the semester-long challenge. Student teams then present their findings at an event designed to recognise student achievement and industry collaboration (VA Chamber, 2020[3]).
Virginia is strengthening the Path to Industry Certification: High School Industry Credentialing
VDOE encourages more students to work toward selected industry credentials or state licenses while pursuing a high school diploma (VDOE, 2022[4]). VDOE evaluates industry credentials on an on-going basis against prescribed criteria for graduation requirements for the Standard Diploma and verified credit. Credentials that meet the criteria are presented to the Virginia Board of Education annually for approval (VDOE, 2022[4]). In this regard, CTE teachers are required to have an industry certification credential in the area in which the teacher seeks endorsement. If not, the Board may, upon request of the employing school division or educational agency, issue the teacher a provisional license to allow time for the teacher to attain such credential (VDOE, 2022[4]).
Virginia saw an increase of students who earned credentials between 2015 and 2017, with a slight decrease in 2018; while in 2019 and 2020 the number decreased by half, it was back up in 2021 (Figure 5.1).
Note: A CTE completer is a student who successfully completes a two-year career or technical education programme and who also completes all requirements for a high school diploma or for an approved alternative education programme, such as a high school equivalency.
Source: (VDOE, 2023[5]), https://schoolquality.virginia.gov/virginia-state-quality-profile#desktopTabs-4 ; https://p1pe.doe.virginia.gov/apex/f?p=248:1:104780846129826:SHOW_REPORT.
Engaging employers to increase, strengthen, expand and promote work-based learning opportunities to enable real world interaction for students
Challenge: The career readiness system in Virginia focuses more on programmes, pathways, credentials and institutions rather than the actual characteristics of careers
Career readiness strategies and programmes in Virginia tend to have a greater focus on immediate programme, pathway or institution selection rather than labour market outcomes to which they link – such as the characteristics of jobs, occupations and skills, aspirations and attitudes of persons in those jobs and occupations. Consequently, students approach high school course selection with limited insight into the professional pathways to which CTE and other provision leads.
While this approach may be easier to manage in terms of student interests and aspirations in an aggregated way given limited school resources, it may risk not adequately matching patterns of labour market opportunities with actual student interests and aspirations, especially when existing programmes, institutions, clusters or pathways are not agile enough to align with the labour market opportunities or guide student interest. In addition, students may have information, options and insight limited by the narrowness of what their school can offer.
To illustrate this issue, four policy outcomes are conceptualised below based on the linkage between student aspirations, the career readiness system, and labour market opportunities or outcomes (Figure 5.2). First, when the career readiness system accurately reflects student aspirations and at the same time smoothly matches student aspirations with labour market opportunities, the system is well aligned. Second, when the system effectively guides student aspirations, from those that are distant from labour market opportunities to those that are closer to those opportunities through offering adequate clusters, pathways and programmes, the outcome is well guided. Third, when the career readiness system corresponds neither with student aspirations nor with labour market opportunities, the system can distort both aspects, even if the two sides are actually well aligned. Fourth, even if clusters, pathways and programmes do a good job meeting student needs and aspiration, they may not function well enough to guide student aspirations to match labour market opportunities, which is unsuccessful from the labour market perspective.
Source: Author’s elaboration
In practice, such mismatches can happen due to the seasonality of certain jobs, a cyclic economy, changing labour market needs, increasingly specialised nature of jobs that require crossover and transferable knowledge and skills, among other reasons. For example, acquiring an accurate picture of the labour market demand for certain career clusters, such as the Agriculture, Food, and Natural Resources (AFNR), is particularly challenging due to evolving skills needs, seasonal fluctuations in employment and higher levels of self-employment (Rephann, 2023[6]). Moreover, career clusters, including AFNR, may not always closely align with the industry employment with which they are most commonly associated; most employment opportunities for the AFNR career cluster are outside the AFNR industry sector, with the Professional, Scientific, and Technical Services sector accounting for 32% of employment. All of these factors can make it more difficult for CTE professionals and counsellors to gauge changes in career opportunities for the career cluster (Rephann, 2023[6]).
Another mismatch may come from the self-interest of particular institutions. For example, a skills system may be dominated by education and learning providers rather than the needs of employers and learners (Holland, 2016[7]). In this case, education providers including schools and training centres could be biased in favour of programmes that are less costly or easier to deliver, which may be due to teacher shortages or availability of resources within school division. There might end up being competition between different education and learning providers in seeking to “sell” programmes, as reported in Scotland’s apprenticeship system (OECD, 2022[8]).
Labour market skills shortages can often signal that something is out of balance, whether it is a policy, incentive, or programme. According to the 2022 Northern Virginia Workforce Index, 71% of 237 regional business leaders reported that filling job openings has been more difficult in the previous 12 months than in the prior year. Primary barriers to hiring were mainly due an overall shortage of interested or available candidates (63%) despite the fact that work-based learning approaches such as internships and apprenticeships are underutilised and offer prime opportunities to expand recruitment. 49% of respondents reported employing at least one intern over the past 12 months and 15% recruit through apprenticeships. Moreover, employers rely heavily on formal educational credentials as part of the hiring process: 25% consider level of education to be very important or essential when making hiring decisions, and 42% are rarely or never willing to accept equivalent professional experience in lieu of education qualification. This kind of rigid stance can be a major but unnecessary cause of perceived skills shortages in a changing labour market. Many hiring approaches that could address these challenges remain underutilised however some proactive employers are approaching school students, from early as Grade 8, to influence their career exploration, experiencing and thinking process as a preliminary exercise to addressing future needs.
US state-level data show that Virginia has been relatively behind in student participation in WBL activities compared to other states. For example, 18% of CTE concentrators in Virginia participate in work-based learning compared to 38% in Georgia in 2020-21 (Figure 5.3). In addition, several CTE advisory committees reported that “guest speakers and industry demonstrations dominated the career experience activities” for students (e.g., Fairfax County, see Box 5.1) and OECD Career Readiness Survey of Young Adults in Virginia revealed that about half of respondents never participated in a worksite visits (51%), a job shadowing activity (49%) or internship (46%). While the Survey of Young Adults in Virginia finds positive relationships between higher levels of teenage engagement with employers through high school career development programmes (results that is also found in comparable UK studies – (Percy and Mann, 2014[9]) (Mann and Percy, 2013[10]) (Mann et al., 2017[11])), on average, young Virginian adults recall fewer than two such engagements. Among teenage students surveyed, 76% had not participated in a job shadowing and 66% had not participated in job fair. All this reflects a need to improve the level of employer engagement in Virginia. An effective guidance system will ensure that engagements with employers form a commonplace aspect of student progression through secondary education.
Note: Student outcome data from the 2020-21 school year should be considered with caution due to the disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, student participation in the state assessments used for the Perkins V academic indicators varied across states, and where student participation was low overall or uneven across student subgroups because of the pandemic, the assessment results may not be representative of the state or a particular subgroup.
Source: https://cte.ed.gov/pcrn/explorer/performance/perkins-v
Each county and city in Virginia host a number of career events and programmes. For example, regional Career Expo events serve 14 localities in Virginia.
As an example, Fairfax County – the biggest county in Virginia – hosted a job fair for students and parents to connect with potential employers and learn about local jobs. The Academy Speaker Series featured various guest speakers and industry demonstrations in different programmes. Various Fairfax County schools hosted career events in different CTE clusters, including:
Occasional events for example, Criminal Justice and Cyber Security Career Fair, Cadaver Lab visit at Northern Virginia Community College, Dental Screening event, and Clinical Shadows.
Career Prep Day: local businesses and organisations visited a school and shared information about health and medical careers and the educational requirements
PATHS Mentor Program (virtual): students participate with their university student mentors in monthly Career Prep Group Workshops and mentors work individually with students on Career Exploration and Preparation, in addition to select students are participating in a research project with their mentor.
West Potomac Pharmacy Tech students take an internship for credit course, being hired as employees through their internship and high school program.
Source: FCPS (2023[12]), Career and Technical Education Highlights for April 2023, https://www.fcps.edu/sites/default/files/media/pdf/April2023Highlights.pdf
Evidence from the OECD Career Readiness Survey of Young Adults also suggests that there is a need to broaden or shift career readiness support in school, rather than focusing heavily on programme/pathway/institution selection.
A large share of respondents reported that they would have welcomed a lot more help from their secondary school in preparing for working life, particularly in understanding the reality of the world of work. For instance, how the tax system works (49%), how employers/businesses actually recruit (47%), and how the world of work is changing, and which skills are likely to be in demand in the future (46%) (Figure 5.4 Panel A). This may reflect the need to broaden the approaches of career development activities while in high school and to bring them closer to labour market opportunities and demand.
They also reported that learning practical employability skills would have been helpful. Most respondents would have welcomed more or a lot more help in how to create a good resumé or write a good job application (45% feeling that they would have benefited from a lot more support), how to perform well in an interview (43%), and how to get access to a formal job training programme such as an apprenticeship (44%) (Figure 5.4 Panel B). 46% would have welcomed a lot more help in areas that Virginian high school system already offers or is expected to offer including: how to find out what different jobs require in terms of skills, attitudes and qualifications (Figure 5.4 Panel B). This suggests strongly that opportunity exists to better prepare students for entry to the labour market as they approach the end of secondary schooling. It also suggests the need for a more concrete framework that articulates what learning and guidance each student should graduate with (see Theme 1, Chapter 4).
A relatively large share of respondents (30%) suggested they would not have valued any further help in getting into college or university – among 14 survey questions listed in Figure 5.4, those who would have welcomed a lot more help on this matter were the smallest (36%). This suggests that Virginia may need to shift from the focus on an immediate transition to tertiary education, to focus more on how to deal with the stress of transitioning (47% reported a lot more help needed), understanding the welfare system (44%), or how to get a job which people of their gender or background do not normally pursue (44%) (Figure 5.4 Panel A). This suggests the need for learning in the connection with mental health and career development altogether.
Source: OECD Career Readiness Survey of Young Adults in Virginia 2023
The OECD review team witnessed during school visits in Virginia that access to a co-op programme, and thus part-time work experience. Analysis of multiple longitudinal datasets shows that teenager part-time working can be routinely linked with better employment outcomes in adulthood, even after controlling statistically for a range of other factors that influence transitions (OECD, 2021[13]; Covacevich et al., 2021[14]; Covacevich et al., 2021[15]). However, access to part-time work linked to programmes of study can be limited for certain students due to co-op regulations. A CTE teacher can only supervise those students enrolled in the cluster for which the teacher is certified. For example, in a high school, only students who attend the business cluster can work part-time as part of co-op programme because only the business CTE teacher has the co-op certificate. Therefore, students in an engineering programme cannot have part-time work experience to broaden their career experience in relation to what they study, as part of CTE, even if they want to.
In conclusion, an over-emphasis on programmes, clusters, pathways, credentials or institutions can be an inefficient approach from the perspective of labour market outcomes. Based on continuous, close contact with local employers and industry representatives, CTE professionals and counsellors should be able to help students broaden or specialise more narrowly than the cluster or pathway to which the students are assigned or than programmes or courses that a student’s school can offer. This flexible approach should of course be complementary to the existing, foundational system that aims to align the overall career readiness provision, including CTE, to regional labour market data (e.g., 17 career clusters, approval process of new CTE courses etc.) while offering interesting and meaningful choices for students. In addition, earlier interventions, notably at Middle School, would allow for more effective student decision-making. Students begin developing thoughts, assumptions and expectations about their futures in the working world from a young age, but frequently these perceptions are overly narrow and confused (Mann, 2020[16]) (Chambers et al., 2018[17]). In addressing such modes of thinking, opportunity exists to enhance transitions out of education into immediate employment again by prioritising the engagement of young people with employers and people in work.
Recommendation: Build a system or mechanism for connecting schools and employer who can offer work-based learning opportunities to allow students systemic, consistent and diverse exposure to employers
Important opportunity exists for Virginia to broaden and deepen young people’s exposure to the world of work, enabling them to explore, experience and think about their potential futures in employment.
The limited employer engagement in Virginia, discussed above, reflects broader, systemic obstacles in engaging employers in career guidance (Musset and Kurekova, 2018[18]). Such transaction costs can be reduced to optimise the engagement of schools with employers.
Removing these obstacles can begin by making the business case to employers and employees as to why they would benefit from engaging in offering WBL or other career readiness efforts given that direct, immediate benefits may be limited. For example, during short work placements, students do not typically do productive work and there is no guarantee that those students would stay in the sector, in that occupation, or with the company. Employers also may not have sufficient motivation to engage in the provision of career guidance, and it is not always clear for the employers how they can benefit from participating in career guidance activities. However, in the long run, offering students such opportunities paves the way for a sustainable talent pipeline – which some employers have already recognised and acted upon (Mann, 2011[19]). Longitudinal studies show that the career aspirations voiced by younger teenagers often serve a predictive quality. (Tai, 2006[20]) for example, review the National Educational Longitudinal Study of 1988 to find that eighth grade students who express a plan to work in the sciences are more likely to do so than comparable peers. In this study, occupational expectation is more strongly linked with occupational outcomes than teenage Maths score. Moreover, evidence of better labour market outcomes for young people also strongly suggests that employers have much to gain through their engagement in career development. Where young adults are less likely to be unemployed, to earn more and to be more satisfied in work, evidence exists of better between employment opportunities and individual preferences and aptitudes underpinning productive engagement in work (OECD, 2022[21]). While the business case is important, many employers and people in work are open to working with schools through altruistic impulses, but only if it is made easy for them.
CTE credential requirements do not always guarantee high quality access to career development activities. In Virginia, there has been a long-term effort to increase the number of graduates who earn CTE credentials – industry credential,1 state licensure,2 Workplace Readiness Skills assessment,3 and National Occupational Competency Testing Institute (NOCTI) assessment.4 All high school graduates can earn one of two diplomas, a Standard Diploma (SD: fewer course taking requirements) or an Advanced Studies Diploma (ASD: more course requirements to prepare for post-secondary education). Graduates who earn Virginia’s SD are less likely to enrol in, persist in, or complete tertiary programmes. Disadvantaged students, such as Black, Hispanic, or English learners, are more likely to earn SD and thus less likely to enrol in college (Harris, Jonas and Schmidt, 2022[22]).
Against this backdrop, in 2013 the Virginia Board of Education added a CTE credential requirement to the SD for High School (HS) students. These CTE credentials are intended to provide HS graduates with additional preparation for college and careers. Graduates can complete this requirement by passing an approved assessment even if they have not enrolled on a related CTE programme (Harris, Jonas and Schmidt, 2022[22]). This policy change saw a positive outcome: from 2011 to 2017, the percentage of SD graduates who earned at least one CTE credential increased from 23% to 91%. A similar increase occurred among ASD graduates, even though the CTE credential requirement applied only to SD graduates. The attainment rates of CTE credentials increased for all groups of SD graduates, including groups based on demographic characteristics, federal programme participation, and academic achievement. While the percentages of SD graduates who earned a CTE credential increased consistently from 2011 to 2017, their college enrolment rates dropped. The percentage of SD graduates completing a CTE programme of study, which requires taking CTE courses that are not required to earn a credential but may still be helpful for later student outcomes, decreased in 2016 and 2017 (Harris, Jonas and Schmidt, 2022[22]).
While the question of whether this requirement of CTE credentials helps high school graduates to have career and college readiness and outcomes remains an empirical question (e.g., workforce outcomes for SD graduates depending on the credentials), there is a limitation to this approach. CTE credential requirements do not guarantee access to high quality career development activities. Another question is whether these CTE credentials have a value recognised by employers (Harris, Jonas and Schmidt, 2022[22]).
By increasing attainment rates of CTE credentials for SD graduates, Virginia expected to increase the options available to graduates for a pathway into and through careers. In implementing this policy, VDOE envisioned this happening by graduates earning one or more CTE credentials that are narrowly aligned to their selected career concentration, equipping them with relevant technical skills (VDOE 2016), or by encouraging more graduates to complete a CTE program of study, which requires CTE course taking and may lead to improved student outcomes but is not required for earning a CTE credential. Recognising the limited number of industry credentials available to secondary students, VDOE (2008-11) also emphasised the importance of CTE credentials as an entry point or stepping stone toward the completion of a certificate program at the post-secondary level and expected the policy to lead to more SD graduates enrolling in college (Harris, Jonas and Schmidt, 2022[22]). However, the outcome was the opposite (i.e., college enrolment dropped) – although their labour market outcomes are unknown.
← 1. VDOE’s definition of industry credentials includes broad CTE credentials that can apply to a wide range of occupations and industries (for example, the National Career Readiness Certificate) and narrowly aligned CTE credentials that support preparation for a specific occupation or industry (for example, the ServSafe Manager Certification). This definition differs from the way many other states define an industry credential (Harris, Jonas and Schmidt, 2022[22]).
← 2. State licensure is a state-recognised professional license, such as a license to practice as a cosmetologist, that counts as a CTE credential (Harris, Jonas and Schmidt, 2022[22]).
← 3. An assessment option that VDOE helped develop to align with the state-wide WRS (Workplace Readiness Skills) framework. The assessment covers three domains that Virginia employers and educators identified as essential for success in the workplace: personal qualities, people skills, and professional abilities. This is a broad CTE credential that can apply to a wide range of occupations and industries (Harris, Jonas and Schmidt, 2022[22]).
← 4. According to NOCTI (2020), its Job Ready assessments assess occupational technical skills; measure aspects of occupational competence such as factual and theoretical knowledge; and, as a group, aim to assess the skills at the secondary and postsecondary level. NOCTI offers both broad CTE credentials that can apply to a wide range of occupations and industries (for example, the 21st Century Skills for Workplace Success credential) and narrowly aligned CTE credentials that support preparation for a specific occupation or industry (for example, the Accounting-Basic credential) (Harris, Jonas and Schmidt, 2022[22]).
Employers and schools often face technical, legal or information barriers that might deter them from mutual co-operation. In fact, internships and apprenticeships are still uncommon among high school students in Virginia, mainly due to legal age barrier but also related to health and safety regulations. Adjustments could be made to facilitate work-based learning (WBL) offerings, such as through experiential learning or other possible means.
Employers may lack knowledge and information on what schools and education providers need and what they, as employers, can in turn provide. On the other hand, schools may lack resources to cover the costs and time linked to reaching out to people in work. In this case, providing a way of engaging in strategic partnerships are helpful. Intermediary bodies and higher education institutions can also play an active role in connecting schools and employers. State-level (for example, through regional WBL co-ordinators) or school division level services can be also strengthened to support partnerships and collaboration. However, such initiatives are likely to be inefficient in cost terms and the provision made available to schools through them can be expected to be inconsistent.
In the UK and New Zealand, Inspiring the Future provides a low-cost model for easily connecting schools and employers at scale, initiated by the leading representative bodies of national educational and economic communities. Inspiring the Future makes use of online technology to connect the two sides. Working on the premise that in any community there are very many people willing to work with schools if only they were asked, the programme works through large employers, professional bodies, trade unions and other networks to enable individuals to register their willingness to be approached by a local school. Volunteers can register both where they live and work and provide details about their personal characteristics, the jobs they do and the education and training pathways they followed. All staff within state schools can then use the resource to identify and approach potential volunteers well suited to their needs to engage in a range of career development activities (OECD, 2022[21]). Since its launch in 2012, Inspiring the Future has been responsible for more than 2.5 million interactions between students and people in work. Operating at a national scale, the programme can be marketed through a single entry-point and action taken to tackle uneven patterns of growth in the volunteer community. National coverage also allows for the low-cost delivery of national campaigns linked to specific economic areas or student characteristics.
There are several examples that can inspire Virginia to increase, strengthen, expand, and promote specific WBL opportunities (also see Box 5.3 and Box 5.4). For example, Canada provides a good example. The country holds a career exploration event, called, Take Our Kids to Work. Launched in 1994 by The Learning Partnership (TLP) and now led by The Students Commission of Canada, Take Our Kids to Work (TOKW) is an experiential learning opportunity for Grade 9 and Secondary III (Quebec) students across Canada offering them the chance to see the world of work first-hand, explore a variety of careers and sectors, and look at what skills are important to thrive in the world of work. Students, their parents, educators, schools, and workplaces have access to a diverse range of options including pre-recorded virtual content to supplement the learning experiences being made available by employers across Canada. Students can participate in TOKW Day hosted by their parent/relative’s employer (in-person or virtually) or in virtual TOKW Day events from home. Teachers can lead students through a virtual TOKW Day during the school day. Educators, employer, and family guides are available to prepare and support the event (TLP and The Students Commission, 2022[23]).
In New Brunswick, Canada, Centres of Excellence helps K-12 students to explore career opportunities and increase career readiness linked to specific strategically important economic areas through virtual and experiential learning opportunities by connecting classrooms with real-world expertise. A Centre of Excellence is a partnership between the education system, community, and industry partners. Currently four exist focused on Energy, Health, Entrepreneurship and Digital Innovation. Centres connect students to expert knowledge through virtual and experiential learning. Another example is Real World Labour Market Challenges (RW-LMIC) that help educators integrate their teaching plans and resources to real world labour market challenges. Supported by the learning resources designed by RW-LMIC, teachers can help their students to understand their role in the labour market and use labour market information to inform career decision-making. It is developed and maintained jointly by the Government of New Brunswick's Departments of Education and Early Childhood Development, the Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training, and Labour, and the Canadian Career Development Foundation.
In addition, Virginia can consider starting career readiness earlier. Elementary school level is not too early to begin career development. It is not a matter of requiring students to select a career for their adult lives, but helping them to broaden their understanding of the world of work, so enriching learning and personal development while challenging stereotypical thinking (which begins as young as five) that may not be representative of the modern working world. In Canada, schools are encouraged to see career development at elementary school in the context of wider personal development (Cahill, 2017[24]) Programmes like Primary Futures in the UK and New Zealand and Little Ripples in Australia provide models of how such provision can begin in ways which are fun and informative for children by enabling connections with people in work and encouraging family discussions. Other models, popular during Middle School years include programmes of career talks with guest speakers and job shadowing. Such programmes can be delivered most efficiently where jurisdiction wide programmes systematically identify interested employers and people in work and make them easily available to schools either for face-to-face or online interactions with students.
By beginning career development earlier, students are given the opportunity to decide upon their course-taking in light of emerging career ambitions. Hence, the importance of enabling career exploration and reflection, enriched by first-hand encounters with workplaces and people in work, from a young age. In New Zealand, the WE3 Continuum adopted by some schools, expects students between the ages of 10 and 14 to engage in programmes of ‘work exposure’: activities that present ideas, information and concepts about the world of work and career development. Typical activities include career talks with people in work about the jobs they do (focused on the value they find in them) and workplace visits combined with discussions of parental occupations, the gendered character of work and the integration of workplace examples into related curricula. As students grow older, they engage in process of ‘work exploration’ (ages 13-16) where students engage in career talks more focused on how such employment can be accessed alongside job shadowing, career conversations, resumé development and student research into occupations of interest. As student reach the end of secondary schooling, they are expected to gain first-hand experience of work in fields of interest. Other systems also prioritise employer engagement within career development through secondary schooling. In England (UK), secondary schools serving students aged 11-18 are expected to meet the eight Gatsby Benchmarks which include:
Every pupil should have multiple opportunities to learn from employers about work, employment and the skills that are valued in the workplace. This can be through a range of enrichment activities including visiting speakers, mentoring and enterprise schemes.
Every pupil should have first-hand experiences of the workplace through work visits, work shadowing and/or work experience to help their exploration of career opportunities and expand their networks.
As High School concludes, the career readiness of students is reinforced if they are supported in their preparation for labour market entry and activation of the human capital that they have accumulated in education. In Armenia, in the penultimate year of education, high school students undertake a 15 hour individual research project designed to map out their transition and employment plans. Students present their plans in public, requiring them to reflect on their investments in education and training to date and providing new information to guide their final 18 months in education before entering post-secondary education or work. In Finland, the School-to-Work Group Method is a twenty hour programme aimed at final year students focused on more vocational studies. The programme is taught jointly by their school and the local Public Employment Service. Over a series of activities, they are helped to reflect on their own experiences of work and desires for employment through individual and team research and discussion alongside practical exercises related to the process of finding employment and socialisation into a new organisation. The relevance of the programme is made clear through the involvement of the employment and engagements with local employers who are interviewed by students. Students are taught how to make use of social networks to secure information about employment, how to approach employers directly, how the complete job applications and resumés, present themselves at interview, identify marketable skills and to understand and respond to expectations of workplace social behaviour. They are taught to ‘think like an employer’ and to reflect on the challenges and barriers which they can expect to encounter in their search for attractive work. A randomised control trial followed 334 students from the final year of secondary education into their first year of employment. Divided into an intervention and control group, students in the former group took part in the full School-to-Work Group Method while their control group peers only received narrow advice on applying for a job. Results showed significant benefits accruing to participants on the Group Method programme. Ten months after leaving secondary school, compared to peers in control groups, programme participants were much more likely to be in employment and in a job that was linked to their educational qualifications and aligned with their career ambitions. They were also assessed to possess stronger mental health (Koivisto, 2007[25]) (Koivisto, 2015[26]). In New Zealand, the SpeedMeet programme is designed to help student activate their accumulated human capital by providing managed introductions to potential employers. Over one hour, final year students specialising in vocational study meet a series of local employers with jobs or apprenticeships to offer. The employer and student speak for several minutes and then rotate to a new encounter. At the end of the event, if the employer and student have both signalled, they would like to continue the conversation, contact details are exchanged.
One unresolved question in the research literature on employer engagement in education is how much is enough. Students can be seen to benefit in different ways at different ages from their engagement, building human, social and cultural capital of value to their ultimate transitions into work. Studies to date have yet to find a ceiling for interventions (Kashefpakdel and Percy, 2017[27]). Opportunity exists in Virginia to build knowledge by integrating greater elements of career development into longitudinal studies and to assess over periods of time the extent to which students are engaged in guidance activities that enables interactions with people in work. It is also possible to assess the effectiveness of interventions by asking students about their perceptions of usefulness. When employers and members of the economic community engage with schools, they are providing access to resources which are not easily found within educational systems. Through employer engagement, students have the opportunity to gain information that is new and useful to them and to develop skills and gain experiences that are fundamentally different to what they can learn in the classroom (Stanley and Mann, 2014[28]). A number of empirical studies support this supposition and have found a relationship between student agreement that provision was useful to them and enhanced later positive employment outcomes (Kashefpakdel and Percy, 2017[27]) (Covacevich et al., 2021[14]).
Nebraska
The Nebraska Department of Education (NDE) has been working with Nebraska practitioners on expanding CTE opportunities for its students. Initiatives include development of a state plan for implementing the reauthorised Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act (Perkins V) that builds on a cohesive vision and policy framework to guide CTE in Nebraska and addresses gaps in access and opportunity. The Nebraska State Board of Education began conversations on Perkins V in spring 2019, anticipating the approval of a state plan in the spring of 2020. But when NDE began rethinking CTE in Nebraska in the early 2000s, it first developed the Nebraska Career Education Model to provide a framework for career awareness and for structuring CTE courses and programmes. The model defines six major career fields and are further broken down by career clusters, which map out the courses a student needs in order to pursue a career. For example, a student interested in skilled and technical sciences might be interested in the career cluster of architecture and construction. Within each career cluster are programmes of study. A programme of study is a specific series of courses designed to prepare students for post-secondary education and career opportunities. In Nebraska, a CTE concentrator is a student who has taken at least three courses in a program of study. Implementation of the Career Education Model (CEM) was in line with the earlier version of the Perkins Act, passed in 2006, and increased the focus on career clusters and programmes of study.
In a second phase, NDE developed Nebraska Career Connections, a free online career planning and information tool for students and teachers to learn about career fields and pathways. It also links to the Nebraska Department of Labor’s workforce trends and information. Adult learners looking for a new career or pursuing post-secondary education also use Career Connections. To implement the CEM, NDE developed a process, in which schools and local communities analyse current career education programs, research school and community needs, and make the adjustments needed to prepare students for post-secondary education and careers. By the end of the 2018-19 school year, 122 Nebraska school districts (half of them) had engaged in the process. Its purpose is to bring new understanding, energy, and commitment to CTE as a vital education, workforce, and economic development strategy. The process relies on a collaborative work team of administrators, school counsellors, CTE teachers, core academic teachers, and representatives from area community colleges and the Nebraska Departments of Labor and Economic Development. Supported by NDE staff, the teams review and analyse school, programme, labour, and economic development data to identify key themes and areas for program development and improvement. The teams draw on several resources.
Source: Wise, Blomstedt and Foor (2019[29]), Rethinking Career Education in Nebraska, https://nasbe.nyc3.digitaloceanspaces.com/2019/09/Wise-Blomstedt-Foor_September-2019-Standard.pdf
Career talks with guest speakers: a guide to delivering an effective career development activity
Career talks with guest speakers are typically undertaken through secondary education. Career talks allow students to hear directly from people in work about their jobs, careers and their pathways through education and training. Career talks are an easy and effective intervention that schools can introduce to enhance career guidance. This is a form of career guidance where evidence from national longitudinal studies consistently shows better long-term employment outcomes – as career talks enable human, social and cultural capital accumulation through employer engagement and access to new, useful and authentic information. For governments and employer associations, career talks represent a means of enabling greater amplification or signalling of job opportunities in strategically important economic sectors that have struggled to recruit sufficient numbers of interested, qualified young people.
During a career talk, a young person is given the opportunity to hear directly from a person in a particular field about their job, career and the pathways through education and training that they have followed. Career talks are similar to, but different from, job fairs and career carousels (where small groups of students engage with multiple employee volunteers), two related activities where students have the opportunity to interact with people in work. They are also different to more informal career conversations that students might have with people in work (discussed in OECD (2021[30])) and one-to-one discussions with guidance counsellors.
In studies from Canada, the United Kingdom and Uruguay evidence has been found of positive associations between career talks and employment outcome, especially when teenagers participated in multiple, useful career talks. (Percy and Kashefpakdel, 2018[31]) conclude that the volume and the perceived authenticity of external speakers drive wage premiums, but that such “speakers can only be at their most effective if teachers work with them to prepare their classes, brief the speaker and link the content to future in-school activities as appropriate”. (Mann, Kashefpakdel and Percy, 2018[32]) found that less advantaged social groups gained much more wage premiums from participation in career talks delivered through their schools, compared to more advantaged ones.
While many schools find volunteer speakers through their social networks including parents and alumni (Rodriguez, 2020[33]), there is the risk that information received will be unduly narrow, reflecting geographic and potentially social circumstances. In this context, intermediary organisations can help schools to find employers and people in work to support a range of guidance activities, including career talks (e.g. Chicago Public Schools). Online technologies are making identification of appropriate volunteers easier: in the UK and New Zealand, Inspiring the Future programme recruits large numbers of volunteers at a national level and allows schools to contact potential speakers directly (Mann, 2020[16]); in the Canadian province of New Brunswick, four Centres of Excellence provide a range of career development activities, including face-to-face, virtual, live, and pre-recorded career talks.
Key factors in the more effective delivery of career talks with guest speakers:
Keep it real, authentic and interactive: Students typically respond differently to information received from people in work to that coming from within the school (Rehill, 2017[34]). Encourage students to ask questions.
Provide multiple opportunities to hear from people in work about their jobs and career pathways: positive benefits are linked to student participation in a larger number of talks (Kashefpakdel and Percy, 2017[27]) (Rehill, 2017[34]).
Make it relevant to connect with students with different personal characteristics and focuses: it is important for schools to link career talks to a school’s curriculum and seek out volunteer speakers who are underrepresented in their field.
Deliver career talks within a continuum of practice and prepare students to engage critically: A member of school staff can act as an intermediary between the speaker and their audience, helping students to interpret the talks’ content and to draw connections with the wider school curriculum, further career development activities and students’ progress. In New Zealand, the WE3 continuum programme changes the emphasis of career talks as students become older.
Enhance equity: Speakers for Schools recruits leading figures in public life and uses online technologies to enable any school to invite them to speak to students about their career and professional life. Fondation L’Oréal supports a network of female scientists in France who are available as speakers to secondary schools.
Delivering career talks online: Schools can take advantage of free online resources and videoconferencing tools. For example, in the UK the Icould library and See it Be it records videos with people in work, notably green careers, who are atypical (given their gender, ethnicity and/or social class) of people working in their profession. In France, Les Métiers en direct is managed by Onisep, provide live sessions with volunteer speakers from their workplaces.
Source: OECD (2023[35]), Career talks with guest speakers: a guide to delivering an effective career development activity, https://doi.org/10.1787/93594cb3-en; (Covacevich et al., 2021[14])
Setting up systemic and consistent collaboration among key stakeholders to make connection quick and easy
Challenges: Existing collaboration and coordination among key stakeholders is rather ad hoc
Collaboration and coordination between stakeholders are key to operating a career readiness system, given that the system lies at the intersection of education and workforce development, as discussed in Chapter 2.. While collaboration between school and employers and communities and coordination among state agencies are happening in Virginia, notably with regard to the development of CTE programmes, this is happening in an ad hoc fashion and is largely dependent on the capacity of the school, division, agency and employer.
This ad hoc approach may be in part due to a lack of information, given that no data are available on what specific career readiness instruments that benefit from employer engagement are available in each school division, how each school division uses those instruments and what the quality and impact of those instruments are, as discussed in Chapter 2..This may prevent the sharing of information and responsibility among stakeholders. Addressing the relevance of career readiness instruments – whether CTE, industry-recognised credentials, career investigation courses, WBL or otherwise – requires all stakeholders to be able to engage directly and efficiently, including schools, divisions, teachers and counsellors, students and parents, as well as state agencies, employers and higher education institutions.
Recommendation: Enable systemic and consistent collaboration among stakeholders, particularly with employers, to make connections quick and easy
A more formalised, systemic and consistent process and approach to working collaboratively to support career readiness would remove barriers to improvement. Evidence shows that increasing employer engagement enhances the quality and quantity of career guidance (OECD, 2021[36]). As demonstrated in this report, students in Virginia who interact more with employers can expect better employment outcomes than comparable peers. Virginia is aware of the importance of employer engagement, and it is increasing, but significant opportunities for improvement remain (see Chapter 3).
In many countries, career guidance systems benefit from organisational structures that bring together stakeholders. In Norway for example, the National forum for career guidance consists of representatives from 28 different organisations and provides advice to government on the design of guidance provision. In Estonia, a working group called ‘career guidance forum’ is the main mechanism for coordinating career guidance services. Members include representatives from ministries, youth and student organisations, schools, the career counsellors’ association, and employers (OECD, 2021[37]). In Scotland, the recent review of career guidance provision was developed by a board where with representation from secondary and tertiary education, workforce development, national and local government and employer. Other initiatives also benefit from partnership working. The Inspiring the Future programme for example was initially overseen by a partnership board with senior representatives from national organisations representing education and employers in the UK. By securing engagement, from both educational and economic communities, early in the development of new approaches, it is more likely that ultimate provision will be both effective and embraced by key stakeholders.
Parents can be both a resource and a barrier for students when considering future possible careers, however parents often need assistance to understand their role in helping to guide their children for thinking, exploring and experiencing. Many parents are not well-equipped to support their children in the school to work transition, and institutional programmes and partnerships can assist in building connections and taking advantage of the strong parent-child relationship (OECD, 2020[38]; OECD, 2022[39]). Providing support to parents and guardians is key in the process of student guidance in the school-to-work transition. For example, in Canada, Canadian Gap Year Association launched a collaborative project that had recent high school graduates speak about their career pathways, focusing on exploring pathways that are not college or university. The panellists did a live virtual presentation in the evening so that students and parents could watch and participate together in break out room discussions. Then it was recorded and made into a classroom/teaching resource with lesson plans (Canadian Gap Year Association, 2021[40]). In Scotland, in a website dedicated to career guidance, parents can also make use of the different online tools available and find information on how to help their children discover their interests and find a pathway that aligns with their skills and knowledge. For example, a webinar series dedicated to parents is available with information about students starting secondary school and their option choices (Skills Development Scotland, 2022[41]).
A recent OECD work provides other useful policy pointers and good examples of facilitating students to make use of family support (Jeon et al., 2023 forthcoming[42]):
In Scotland, Skills Development Scotland (SDS) developed the Engaging Families programme, a professional development intervention for the SDS staff to increase their capacity to work with families. The programme brought together experts and practitioners for open and creative discussions about how to work with families. Critical to the programme’s success was the opportunity for practitioners to hear directly from parents and parental representatives about to best engage parents. The programme also identified examples of good practice like the Discover and Connect programmes which had successfully engaged parents in a specific area, but the impact of which remained confined to local areas. Engaging Families represents a serious attempt to shift practice around career guidance work with families at a national level through professional development (Cameron and Edwards, 2021[43]).
The Parents Turn intervention in the Netherlands brought parents and their children together in a series of after-school sessions for learning about post-secondary options (Oomen, 2018[44]). The findings of a robust evaluation of the programme suggested that a school-initiated career intervention involving parents can build and enhance parent capacity to be involved in and support the career development of their child. The argument is made that increasing this kind of parental support can make a contribution to social justice by educating and empowering parents to support their children.
In France, researchers found that a programme of career discussions between parents and school staff was able to reduce dropout and grade repetition by 25-40% (Goux, Gurgand and Maurin, 2017[45]). In this intervention school principals selected the 25% of students who were most likely to dropout and invited them to attend two collective meetings during the second term. During those meetings, principals discuss the aspirations of the family and the child and relate them to the academic performance of the child. This discussion enabled the school to stimulate career thinking and provide feedback on the realism of aspirations, based on current performance. This resulted in improve relations between families and schools, increased engagement from the students and more career focused educational choice making, as well as a reduction in dropouts.
The UK, New Zealand, Australia and Ireland
Launched in 2012, Inspiring the Future is a programme of Education and Employers, an independent UK-based charity. The programme provides secondary school students (ages 11-18) with opportunities to meet and interact with volunteers who work people in a wide and diverse range of careers and backgrounds – ‘from apprentices to CEOs, app designers to zoologists’ – to inform, inspire and motivate them.
These activities are hosted by schools and include informal career insight talks, job fairs, mentoring, job shadowing, interview practice and CV workshops. The programme’s unique delivery model facilitates these interactions by connecting UK secondary schools for free to volunteers via a secure online match-making platform. The system is designed to allow prospective volunteers to easily register online, selecting geographic areas where they will be available to schools and the activities they would like to be involved in. Schools can then select from a large and diverse pool of volunteers to meet their needs.
Inspiring the Future’s scope and national coverage allows it to run a number of concurrent campaigns and themed weeks. One example is Inspiring Women – a national campaign with some 24 000 female volunteers, focused on breaking down gender stereotypes and challenging assumptions. In addition, there are Inspiring the Future campaigns showcasing occupations where knowledge of foreign languages is important (Inspiring Languages) and identifying potential candidates willing to serve on school governing board (Inspiring Governance). The approach has also been used to identify apprentices and people in work who oversee apprenticeships to provide schools with access to individuals well placed to provide authentic insight into such work-based training programmes.
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, Inspiring the Future began delivering employer engagement activities virtually as a safer alternative to its in-person activities. Prior to its rollout, Inspiring the Future conducted more than 200 meetings with schools and consulted with experts regarding best practices for online engagement. As a result, the programme has also produced and disseminated learning guides and resources for teachers, parents, and volunteers on virtual activities. As of 2022, 85% of secondary schools in England have signed up to Inspiring the Future, which has facilitated more than 2.5 million interactions between young people and volunteers from the world of work (OECD, 2022[21]).
Source: https://www.inspiringthefuture.org/; https://www.educationandemployers.org/inspiring-the-future/; https://www.inspiringthefuture.org.nz/#/, https://www.inspiringthefuture.org.au/; https://inspiringthefuture.ie/
Strengthen career development activities that lead to aspiration for skilled employment (ISCO 6-8)
Challenge: Students in Virginia have limited exposure to the breadth of the labour market, undermining progression towards important occupational areas, including the skilled trades
Systemic collaboration with sectors and trade associations can also benefit students, schools, and employers by encouraging student awareness of and progression towards employment in the skilled trades. According to the analysis of OECD Career Readiness Survey of Teenage Students, only 9% students who named an expected future occupation named one within ISCO-08 6-8. Earlier OECD work on Virginia suggested that there is a risk that the state’s strategy skews towards the promotion of credentials in the field of computer science and related fields, at the expense of other areas of high demand, such as health-related occupations, teaching and the skilled trades, or valuable non-technology-related degrees (OECD, 2020[46]). Involving sectors and trade associations could address this issue by exposing not only students to the trades, but also parents, schools, career guidance workers, and other stakeholders.
Students are most often only being exposed to the labour market demands of their limited region of Virginia. More often, students are making career-related decisions based on the available programmes in their limited region or their parents’ expectation rather than on what may have been their preferred career pathway.
The OECD Career Readiness Teenage Student survey reveals that many students in Virginia did not have an opportunity to explore careers in a diversifying way. The majority (88%) never spoke to an advisor outside of their school. Only a third of students (36%) spoke to a career counsellor at their school. A quarter of surveyed students participated in job shadowing (24%) and a third of students (34%) participated in a job fair. OECD Career Readiness Young Adult survey also reveals that more than half of 19-26-year-olds never spoke to an advisor outside of their school (52%). This lack of broad exposure may lead to narrow career orientation. For example, only about 9% of surveyed teenage students with a clear idea about their future occupation named a medium-skilled occupation of ISCO 6, 7 or 8 (respectively, Skilled Agricultural, Forestry and Fishery Workers; Craft and Related Trades Workers; and Plant and Machine Operators and Assemblers), which is also relatively rare among parents’ jobs.
While students in Virginia tend to be influenced by parents’ occupation, mainly when parents have high-skilled occupation. Students whose parent work in a high skilled occupation (ISCO 1-3) are more likely to expect to work in a similar level of occupation, compared to those whose parent work in a mid to low-skilled occupation. For example, 67% of students who expect to work in a managerial occupational group have at least one parent who works in that occupational group while 26% of those students who expect to work as craft and trades worker have one of parents who work in that occupational group. Overall, 33% of surveyed students whose either parent has a high skilled occupation tend to expect to work in a high skilled occupation. This means to inspire and diversify students to consider the skilled trades, career readiness provision at school is more important than it is for managerial or professional occupations. Moreover, this implies the need for a continuum of learning framework for career readiness – students are choosing from what they know and have been exposed to and therefore starting in kindergarten students need to be exposed to more than the occupations they see in their homes and community.
Note: The sample includes grade 10-11 students in Virginia who completed the OECD survey and were born in 2006-08; from schools with more than 22 respondents or 14% student participation, which is a total of 9 333 students from 46 schools (9 353 with weight) (see Annex 2.A for details).
Source: OECD Career Readiness Survey of Teenage Students in Virginia 2023
Consequently, while the skilledtTrades (construction and manufacturing) is one of the five Virginia’s most in-demand industries, (together with Early Childhood Education, Healthcare, Information Technology and Public Safety) and offer many attractive careers, student interest is limited and major initiatives targeting or prioritising students of tertiary education. For example, to address skills shortages, Virginia provides G3 tuition assistance for students living in Virginia who qualify for state financial aid with a household income less than USD 100 000 and who study tertiary education in those most in-demand industries. While 46% of G3-aligned occupations (middle-skills focus) typically require educational attainment lower than an associate degree level (42% require high school diploma) (VOEE, 2023[47]), there is no specific initiative focused on guiding K-12 students to the skilled trades yet other than Workforce Credential Grant programme through which high school students can get a relevant certificate in high-demand occupations (VDOE, 2022[2]). This programme aims to supply a sufficient number of credentialed workers to fill high-demand occupations: 109 occupations (43% of G3-aligned occupations) are common to both programmes, which are administered by SCHEV (VOEE, 2023[47]).
While CTE and co-operative education programmes offer valuable introductions to skilled employment, opportunity exists to expand student interest. Lack of interest may be for one of two reasons. Students may not have a fully informed understanding of relevant professions and decide that their career ambitions lie elsewhere. Alternatively, it is possible that student understanding is partial and insufficient to make an informed decision about CTE provision or the professions to which it is related. While the education system has limited capacity to address the attractiveness of occupations, it can take steps to address information asymmetry in collaboration with the economic community.
Recommendation: Provide students with more diverse career perspectives, in particular on the skilled trades
In this context, a systemic, consistent and diverse exposure to employers and people in work, especially those of mid and low-skilled occupations, needs to be guaranteed for all students before they leave high school, which will be achieved notably by increasing and expanding the WBL opportunities, especially for the skilled trades. As seen in Chapter 3, students who are engaged in career experiencing activities tend to expect more to work in the skilled trades (Figure 5.6). While the contribution of career development activities (CDA) in high school to preventing college or university dropouts is not evidenced, CDA in high school can guide the way to fulfilling employment in the skilled trades as an alternative to tertiary education for those who have high probability to dropout. As discussed in Chapter 3, employment and earning wages are the main reasons for going to tertiary education and likewise the main reasons for dropping out.
Note: The sample includes grade 10-11 students in Virginia who completed the OECD survey and were born in 2006-08; from schools with more than 22 respondents or 14% student participation, which is a total of 9 333 students from 46 schools (9 353 with weight) (see Annex 2.A for details). ‘Experiencing’ refers to (non-)participation in any of the five activities.
Source: OECD Career Readiness Survey of Teenage Students in Virginia 2023
A number of models exist for consideration. In the UK, Baker Clause makes it a legal requirement that schools enable post-secondary vocational training providers to engage with students between the ages of 13 and 18 to inform them about apprenticeships and other forms of vocational training. It is required that students have at least six encounters with such providers through their secondary education. Importantly, engagement begins prior to key decision-making points where students choose the specific pathways through education and training they wish to pursue.
In a number of countries, such as Australia and Denmark, networks of apprentices (and apprentice recruiters) are recruited through models like Inspiring the Future to enrich guidance activities through first-hand testimony about the character of post-secondary training. Alumni of CTE and co-operative education programmes can be powerful advocates of programmes that lead towards careers in the skilled trades. However, while many schools make use of such people on a volunteer basis, alumni programmes are not systemised in relation to vocational and technical education. In Europe, technical schools in a number of countries have piloted new approaches to alumni development, moving away from fundraising to focusing on how alumni can support curriculum design, delivery and student transitions. Engaging with alumni can also be an important means of helping students to gain first-hand experience of work (important in professions which may be misunderstood) through internships and part-time working.
As seen in Figure 5.6, students in Virginia who engage in such career experiences tend to be more likely to expect to work in the skilled trades. For students from backgrounds that are underrepresented in skilled trades professions, such experiences can be particularly powerful. However, due to safety concerns, opportunities for worksite visits and hands-on experiences can be limited. In other jurisdictions, such as New Brunswick, Canada, schools are now integrating use of virtual reality kits (based on the same tools that are used in training) to provide students from a young age with a taste of what it is like to operate heavy machinery with provision linked to easily accessed labour market information about related professions. School provision in Virginia can also do more to help young people in the process of identifying and applying for apprenticeship and training programmes while students are still in school. In all, 43% of young adults agreed that they would have welcomed a lot more help (and a further 37% wishing that they had had some more help) from their school in understanding ‘how to get a formal job training programme or apprenticeship’
Indeed, mobile, experiential, and virtual learning can be an effective way to attract young people’s interest to these sectors and occupations (see Theme 3, Chapter 6). The OECD team visited a company in rural Virginia that provides such learning options that can lead to a diverse set of occupations in the aviation industry, including the skilled trades. The company addresses challenges linked to the uneven distribution of related industries across the commonwealth by sponsoring a mobile learning resource which allows students the opportunity to practice on flight simulators and gain access to information about the industry from individuals with first-hand experience of the industry. In New Brunswick, Canada, the Department of Education and Early Childhood Development has partnered with welding sector bodies to build a portable welding trailer to give high school students – both urban and rural – experiential learning opportunities (Government of New Brunswick, 2021[48]).
Moreover, Virginia can make a more active use of non-degree credential programmes for high school students and graduates while clarifying what pathways and outcomes those programmes can lead to. One way is to build career and education pathways beyond high school level qualifications to show that this option is not a dead end. Some skilled workers want and need further specialist training in their occupational field, rather than more general higher education. The development of higher-level professional qualifications to which those completing non-degree credential programmes may aspire can help develop a skills system that reinforces entry-level training with a career structure and aspiration. In the German-speaking countries in Europe, this is partly addressed through the Meister, or “master craftsperson” qualification, which allows acquiring higher-level professional skills, including skills to train the next generation of skilled trade workers (OECD, 2022[8]).
Notably through CTE and co-operative education, Virginian schools offer some attractive means of supporting students on journeys towards ultimate work in the skilled trades. However, it must be recognised that in many countries, such employment suffers from a comparatively poor reputation and misunderstanding. Such stigma is often felt more strongly by discrete groups of students. It has been noted that 9 in 10 young Americans at age 15 expect to continue into post-secondary tertiary education. Effective systems recognise that students from a young age need to be exposed to the skilled trades in order to be in a position to have a view on whether they would wish to pursue a relevant High School programme of study. One of the strengths of US education is its capacity to allow students to explore vocational areas of interest while still in general secondary education. This model encourages and enables exploration without closing off options for students. In many other countries, students have to change institution altogether if they are to explore such vocational interests. However, even within the US system, vocationally-focused programmes of study, notably co-operative education which demands 50% of student school time, are designed in ways to enable easier progression into careers of choice. Here, effective guidance will focus as much on that career as the related programme of study. Students are being asked to make important commitments with significant opportunity costs and consequently it is essential that they are able to express a confident understanding of related professions before making a final choice. It can be expected that certain groups of students, notably girls, may have greater hesitancy in exploring vocationally-focused pathways. As discussed below, additional initiatives can be taken to address concern that a particular pathway into anticipated occupations will be right for all students (OECD, 2018[49]).
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