In responding to the Green Paper from a career guidance perspective, there are three broad options: to argue for an all-age career guidance service; to argue for the retention of Connexions, but strengthening its universal career guidance provision; or to accept the devolution of funding to schools and colleges, in association with children’s trusts, but to insist upon strong quality standards and other measures to assure quality in general and impartiality in particular.
The relative desirability of these different options seems in inverse proportion to the feasibility of persuading the Government to adopt them.
Arguably, there is little point in pressing for the first two options, which the Government is unlikely to support. On the other hand, to concede these ideas without even putting the case for them would seem a betrayal of principle.
Professor Tony Watts
3 Summerfield
Cambridge
