“There has been an argument in Government about how to get the right careers advice in schools and successive governments have frankly messed this up.” There is an adage that less is more, and in the case of Mr Cables speech to representatives from the manufacturing industry this week, had he sat down after uttering those 25 words he would have been ahead in the minds of most people in this country who were willing to listen. Successive Governments have certainly made a mess of understanding what happens in Schools and this is largely because so few MPs and indeed Ministers have a background that has any link with the world of education that goes beyond their own Schooling and Higher Education. There has been almost as many reorganisations of Careers advice in Schools as there have been changes to the National Curriculum. It is now the responsibility of Schools to provide this for themselves and because the School landscape is so diverse following other Government changes, one wonders if this has diminished the economies of scale that the previous Connexions and predecessor schemes could rely on to ensure that good quality and impartial advice was available for all Schools in a given area?

However sadly Mr Cable did not stop at his 25 words of honest reflection. According to this report in the Telegraph along with the other papers that covered the subject, he went on to say:

“But the underlying problem is of course that most teachers, particularly in the secondary sector, are graduates. They know how universities work, they know what you have to do to get an A-level, they know about UCAS forms – but they know absolutely nothing about the world of work.”

I may be wrong, but I don’t think Vince Cable is really suggesting that he wants to see Schools full of educators who are unqualified although that appears to be the view of his colleague Michael Gove. I also don’t think he is suggesting that teachers are better acquainted with the A-Levels and UCAS forms than young graduates clutching their PPE degrees and helping people like Vince Cable to run the Government. Vince then went on to say:

“They don’t know how to direct people to apprenticeships or traineeships which we’re now doing as a first stage for people. We’re issuing guidance to schools on how they should put in place proper careers guidance in schools linked to the world of work, but we start from a bad place.”

Just as the world of education seems to change every few months, thanks to ideas emanating from the Department for Education, so too the mechanisms for getting young people into work have changed dramatically in the last 4 years. Indeed that is part of what lies behind Vince Cables opening 25 words. Even if most teachers were well versed in the ways of business and industry in their area, they could only expect to know about the Government’s latest plans for apprenticeships and traineeships if they were reading the documents that Vince Cable has just explained he is about to issue to them. Telling business leaders that the Government has made a mess and teachers are making a mess is not a very constructive message, even if parts of it are accurate. Let us hope that in the unreported parts of what the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills had to say was the request that businesses engage with their local Schools so that the teachers who are attempting to prepare students for their future, have access to a willing pool of employers who will in time want to employ some of these men and women. In the meantime perhaps Mr Cable might like to reflect on the men and women who surround him at his place of work. How many of them have experience of a world outside of Westminster, and how willing are they to challenge the idiotic comments that are made by Senior Ministers when they appear to  speak before they think!