Nearly a quarter of parents do not feel comfortable giving their children practical advice on what options are available for them when they leave secondary school.
At the start of National Apprenticeship Week, education company Pearson has published the results of a YouGov survey it commissioned asking parents what they thought about their children’s’ life chances.
Half of the parents surveyed believe their children have a worse chance of getting a “good job” than they did, and just as many worry their children aren’t getting the right skills they need for future employment. This is while 46 per cent think their child has a more difficult decision to make about post-16 education than they did.
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Despite one in four students who started university in 2017 having taken a BTEC qualification, over a third of parents (37 per cent) don’t know whether it will enable students to gain entry to university.
Rod Bristow, president of Pearson in the UK, said it is understandable that parents are concerned about the implications that changing employer needs will have on their children.
He added: “Having listened to both parents and employers, we believe the 16 to 19 phase should offer young people a clear range of options, allowing them to follow a purely academic A-level route, a broad career-focussed applied generals route and more specialised options that allow students to prepare for a particular occupation, like T levels or apprenticeships.”
