Big changes are awakening. Policymakers and education strategies leaders around the world are recognising that quality career education in schools is critical to achieving education, societal and economic outcomes.
What has been overlooked and underdone for years, treated as a silo or an add-on is now coming into focus as a critical gap that needs to be addressed. Quality careers education - not a tick-box approach - done in meaningful ways has real impact on individual students and their future.
This post pulls together highlights from key recent research and updates relating to three major areas of changeand their implications for many schools, educators and career development professionals.
Those three areas are the role of high-quality career education within education strategy, the role of the Career Development Professional, and the role that all teachers in preparing young people for their future.
We are on the brink of the updated Gatsby Benchmarks, coming into effect for UK schools in just a couple of weeks’ time. It's time to close the gap between the now in school and the future in life.
It doesn’t get much bigger than this.
The recent Delphi study by Rice and Hooley examined the role of non career specialist teachers in career related learning. As part of that study they asked this question of their respondents (as have many before them including philosophers, educators and thousands of students every day!)
So, what is the purpose of school? Rice and Hooley concluded, ‘one of the central roles that schools have is in preparing young people for successful transition to, and ultimately making wise choices within, the labour market’.
No question that we would agree on the aim.
But it’s what we do in schools and how that leads to successful transitions and wise choices (and what even these are) that causes all the debate.
In their report, Rice and Hooley summarise two views. At BECOME we recognise these two views in the strategies, practice and the different outcomes that are held up and celebrated in the schools we have been working with for years.
One view is that we prepare students for their future by helping them to successfully acquire knowledge and to prepare for exams in subject areas that result in their grades. This model places grades as a proxy for future success, a stage gate if you like, beyond which everything should work out, because your grades determine your future options.
The other view supports a more radical reform of education, connecting to the real world of work by focusing on learners acquiring not just knowledge but also the skills and capabilities to connect, reflect on, transfer and apply their learning in a real-world context.
This approach is increasingly gaining traction and support around the world, and some progress is being made on how that broader definition of success might be recognised within a system, for example by the New Metrics project from the University of Melbourne.
The ability to think critically and creatively has huge value in the shifting modern world where adaptability, the capacity to learn and acquire new skills must sit within the learner, not in the school or the institution.
The revisions to the UK's Gatsby Benchmarks are a bold stab at straddling these two approaches and making them work together - to really work for the future of each individual young person in which work and learning are enmeshed.
The truth is that end of school exams and grades are still here. Plus employers need employees who can think critically, solve problems and adapt in new situations. So, regardless of where you and your school sit in this approach to education reform, the focus of education is the future.
Unfortunately, young people don’t feel very knowledgeable and ready to successfully transition to work or make decisions within the labour market:
The OECD's Career Readiness team found, in England:
Australian research at Monash University found a lack of self-efficacy in careers:
It’s pretty clear that we have to do better in order to have an adaptable workforce of critical thinkers, people who are the opportunity-aware, active lifelong learners that our rapidly changing world of work requires.
If we're thinking cost benefit, the ROI has even been calculated:
‘For every dollar invested in quality Career Development we see a 1:2.5 return in savings made and productivity’.
- Hooley & Dodd, 2015
The benefit to society for getting this right is also clear:
‘A society in which individuals transition seamlessly from education into fulfilling careers experiences transformative economic, social, and personal benefits—building a stronger, more prosperous future’.
- Phil Jarvis, Cannexus 2025
Given how essential this ready, adaptable, creative workforce is for our economy and society, it’s no wonder that it’s coming into focus -- particularly now that the OECD Career Readiness project and Dashboard have created a focal point and a very visible picture of the current state of play.
But as with so many things that are considered essential learning for all young people, we rely on schools to deliver this equitably and consistently. This is where a whole school approach to career education comes in.
We’ve done a lot of work at BECOME on moving from the ROI of career development to the ROE of career education. What is the Return On Education (ROE) for schools for doing this work, when they have so many competing priorities?
Schools do benefit from quality careers education, in the here and now. Key considerations in designing that whole-school approach is what creates quality career education and meaningful experiences for students. Here are two components which should exist in paralell:
This occurs when schools create the time and space for explicit career education from the primary years, led by their teachers. This includes activities designed to help students explore as broadly as possible and think deeply about their future, testing out their ideas in meaningful ways that consider their emerging motivations.
Instead of students passively working to get 'through' a system, their ideas and hopes for the future become an essential part of their learning. It's 'Who do I want to be in the world, and what do I need to learn or do to start making that happen?'
‘Career education done this way, where student futures become the lens, is the gap in education that I can’t unsee’.
Marian Wright.
Although minimal time is still mandated for explicit career education, globally -- we’re increasingly seeing schools and systems recognise that career education outcomes are wellbeing outcomes, so around 50% of allocated wellbeing time is spent on programs like BECOME. When schools do this they are telling students clearly that, as a school, we’re here to prepare you for your life beyond school and your hopes, aspirations, plans and preparedness for the future are central and important to us. Students are engaged because it’s all about them; a structured program like BECOME has tangible outcomes for each year group and it links learning to real life in ways that are personal to each student.
There are many benefits of explicit career education from the primary years:
Integrated career education means all teachers, in all subjects, help pupils understand how the knowledge and skills they’re learning in subject sessions are relevant to the world of work and applied in the world of work.
As part of their practice and planning cycles teachers include curriculum–career connections and use a variety of ways to bring these connections to life, from super simple shout-outs to meaningful industry experiences. This integrated approach should not be the substitute for a consistent, explicit careers education program designed and supported by a Career Development Professional alongside the school leadership team (in particular the curriculum and wellbeing leaders). Respondents in Rice and Hooley’s Delphi study highlighted the failures, inconsistency and risks of this ‘within subject’ approach being considered a whole-school approach, when it should be just part of the picture.
With integrated career education as part of a whole-school approach:
For many years, BECOME has been working with schools and systems to design a whole-school approach to student futures that enhances their strategic aims rather than being an addition. When we make just a little room for this work, it has a multiplier effect, boosting positive engagement, achievement, wellbeing and self-efficacy in young people over their learning path and how much effort they put into learning.
Whilst the career leader in schools is key to driving this work alongside the rest of the leadership team, it is only successful if the broader team understand and embrace their role in this work and embed it into their practice. Teachers do not need to become career development specialists, this is a professional role with specialist skills but they should be inspired to start creating this line of sight to the future for students in simple ways.
The new BECOME microcredential course for teachers is an engaging and efficient way to get the whole team briefed on their role in student aspirations. This strengthens the team at any school to start or strengthen the journey to implementing a student-centred and learning-centred whole school approach to career education and all it's benefits.
In just over 2 hours, non-career-specialist teachers learn about their hugely valuable positive effect on aspirations, how and when to apply their value in explicit teaching about careers (generally in collaboration with the careers leader), in integrating career exploration and experiences into subject learning, and in having mindful and powerful careers- and futures-related conversations with students.
As one teacher reflected after a recent training session:
‘Doing this work has reminded me why I became a teacher in the first place!’
The world is shifting to see the importance of a quality careers education approach across a school, to make a bridge between a learner in the present and their enticing, exciting future. Let's set them up to be ready.
Sources:
Gleeson, J. et al 2022. Young women choosing careers: who decides? CYPEP, Monash University.
Hooley, Tristram and Dodd, Vanessa 2015. The economic benefits of career guidance. Careers England.
Mann, A., J. Diaz and S. Zapata Posada 2024. Teenage Career Development in England: A review of PISA 2022 data. OECD.
Rice, S. and Hooley, T. 2025. How can and should secondary school teachers be involved in building students’ career knowledge and skills? A Delphi study of the expert community
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