Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 5:36 pm on 16 November 2021.
I remember many debates around the role of school, and by the time people are of school leaving age, the fact that many of your patterns for life are already set: your expectations about who you are, for better or for worse, but crucially also, the way you see yourself and whether you think a career is a realistic option for you. Many people have not necessarily consciously ruled out careers and opportunities, but it's partly about what happens in the school but also outside school as well—the point about aspiration and expectation for yourself, for your community as well. That is why I think it is important that the programme of work experience we've already run—and, in fact, your colleague Paul Davies referred to this—about deliberately looking to get opportunities from businesses and speakers into schools to highlight the variety of careers that are available.
But it also goes then to Joyce Watson's question and point about how you see careers and not just rule yourself out, but the businesses themselves making clear that there are careers for everybody within their sector. And it is important for more of that reality of choice, not just the theoretical prospect of it, but the reality of a real choice for you to make of the sort of careers, but to understand what you need to do to achieve. It's why the point about traineeships and alternative qualifications is so very important, because some people leave school without great academic qualifications. But actually, those people can still have highly successful careers in other parts of the economy, and it's why, again, the advice, the guidance and the support element of the guarantee is so very important.
And, of course, that means working with schools, to work with the advice that we know that they provide to young people, but like I said, make sure there is a variety of choices and opportunities that are real for all of those people for the sorts of skills they do have, rather than telling people what they can't do, to look at what they can do, and where that allows them to be successful in life. And, of course, the world of work is a major part of that.