Education and Employers
Research Digest - June 2023

Publications

Careers Education, Information, Advice and Guidance

UK, House of Commons Education Committee

Just published: The Commons Education Select Committee’s report findings and recommendations from its inquiry into the effectiveness of careers education information advice and guidance delivered in schools and colleges in England. 

Data-Driven Career Advice the Gallup-Amazon Careers of the Future Index

Gallup & Amazon

In partnership with Amazon Future Engineer, Amazon’s global philanthropic computer science education program, Gallup has created the Careers of the Future Index. The public database aims to provide young adults and their advisers with transparent and useful data about the economic prospects of careers in the United States and to inform industry and other stakeholders looking to invest in young adults’ career pathways.

Schools partnership programme 

David Godfrey, Jake Anders, Louise Stoll, John Jerrim, Bernardita Muñoz Chereau, Ruth McGinity & Toby Greany

This report sets out the planned impact evaluation design (a quasi-experimental matched difference in differences design at the school level), reporting the construction of the matched comparison group and the resultant balance between the programme and comparison groups at the outset of delivery. Other than that reporting, this report focuses on findings from the implementation and process evaluation (IPE), which continued in an adapted form. 

Interventions to increase girls’ aspirations for engineering and technology careers 

EngineeringUK 

The review summarises the evidence on some key approaches and the learnings drawn from their evaluation. Links are given to the full papers so interested readers can see full details of the methods used and their findings. Much of the evidence is mixed or inconclusive. The reflections highlighted in this report, drawn from the papers directly and from the reviewer's perspective looking across the published studies, are intended to help those looking to explore similar approaches to benefit from the experience of others.

The employability badge skills for life, work and a stronger society 

Alice Dawson & Kate Harrison 

This report identifies what we call a double skills gap: a lack of both technical and transferable skills that are crucial in the workplace. We found that 60% of
employers struggle to hire young people with sufficient technical skills, while 50% say they struggle to hire young people with sufficient transferable skills like leadership, teamwork and emotional resilience. However, while technical skills are important, we found that transferable skills are particularly valuable for young people’s employability. 57% of employers told us they value transferable skills over technical skills, compared to just 10% who say they value technical skills more.

Engineering skills needs –now and into the future 

EngineeringUK

This report provides cutting-edge insights on the direction of travel for the engineering profession. It does so by combining projections from past labour market trends with big data analytics from job postings data – a unique, almost real-time source of information on employers’ skills needs.

The Role of English and Maths in Technical and Vocational Education: Looking back to look forward 

Nuala Burgess 

This paper is to provide an historical overview of the role of English and Maths within technical and vocational education and training (TVET) in England. It
examines how the perceived value attributed to English and Maths, both together and as individual academic and applied subjects, has developed over time.

Comments

Why girls should play with building blocks and construction toys and parents should join in 

Matthias Eck, Justine Sass, Juliane Hencke and Dirk Hastedt, Sabine Meinck, Alec Kennedy, & Tianyi Liu 

Scaling impact in education for transformative change: Practical recommendations from the Real-Time Scaling Labs 

Molly Curtiss Wyss, Maya Elliott, Jenny Perlman Robinson, & Ghulam Omar Qargha 

Crisis Affected Children and Adolescents in Need of Education Support: New Global Estimates and Thematic Deep Dives 

Matteo Valenza 

Events