- 80% of employers find it ‘very difficult’ to target parents
- Less than 5% of students can name 5 school & college leaver employers
- Less than 5% of parents want their children to do an apprenticeship
There is a significant knowledge gap among parents, teachers and guardians when it comes to school leaver programmes and apprenticeships. This is just one of many eye-opening findings from the 2015 School & College Leaver annual research report, conducted by AllAboutResearch.co.uk and AllAboutSchoolLeavers.co.uk. Released in print on Thursday 25th June, it is the largest and most comprehensive school leaver research report to date.
Launched during an event at The Curzon Cinema in Mayfair, attended by government officials, employers and other key figures in the school leaver market, the report offers valuable insight into the career-related aspirations, habits and opinions of key groups.
Major findings of the report include:
- Parents are the greatest influence on students’ career decisions with 80.8% of students stating that they go to their parents for help making career decisions.
- 45% of students mentioned pressure from parents, guardians and peers as key reasons for not exploring alternatives to university.
- Only 40% of parents understand the meaning of a Higher Apprenticeship.
- 11% of parents/guardians believe that their children are “too clever for an apprenticeship or school leaver programme”.
- 96.5% of teachers are aware of university as an option for school and college leavers, but an overwhelming 81.7% wish they knew more about non-university options.
- 78.3% of employers believe the volume of school and college leaver recruits will outnumber the volume of graduate recruits within the next five years. 65.2% believe that this will occur in three years.
Despite continuing pressure to apply to university, only 54.33% of students interviewed said that they are only considering traditional university routes, which implies a significant number are considering other options.
Over 10,000 school and college students across the UK were surveyed, as well as over 1,000 parents, 500 teachers, 280 careers advisors, and 27 key employers offering graduate and school leaver programmes.
The results cover a wide range of topics: employee brand awareness, careers guidance practice, subject teacher knowledge of school leaver options, and how school college students and their parents make decisions, habits and form opinions.
With apprenticeships contributing a staggering £34 billion to the UK economy and the government’s promise of three million schemes this year, the graduate recruitment market is set to decrease rapidly within the next five years. It is therefore time that everyone was better informed about alternatives to university.
AllAboutSchoolLeavers also compared and utilised data collected in 2014 – when over 1,500 students, 200 parents and 175 careers advisers were surveyed – with the new data, to see how the named groups could better engage with students and teachers.
The number of young people starting apprenticeships has increased consistently since 2008 and this is a trend that is set to continue. According to statistics from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, there were 126,400 more Advanced Apprenticeship starters in 2013 and a 17% decline of undergraduate starters the same year.
Jack Denton, co-founder of AllAboutSchoolLeavers, said: “As fewer people go to university and begin to take on non-university routes, employers must think about balancing the size of their graduate and school leaver intakes. The supply of vacancies must match the changing demands of the market.”
The event in London’s Mayfair also included a formal presentation of AllAboutGroup’s new project, Young People Prepared: a series of three pilots to be launched in September 2015 in schools in the East Midlands. The aim of the venture is to test all assumptions made about school leavers so far, and to trial, iterate and improve them by the end of the year.
Launched in 2011, AllAboutSchoolLeavers.co.uk is the ultimate careers information website for school and college students considering all career routes, from apprenticeships to school leaver programmes and sponsored degrees. About 175,000 young people are registered across all of AllAboutGroup’s careers guidance websites, and the sites receive over 300,000 unique users per month.
If you have any more questions about the report, please email georgia.leefe@allaboutgroup.org or give us a call on 0203 651 4919.
