We’re a non-profit working specifically with pupils in the post-16 age group. We provide a two-year course to help high ability pupils from disadvantaged backgrounds to achieve their potential, so that when they come to leave school they have a genuine choice about what to do with their lives.
How did it start?
It actually started in the States about 20 years ago. Sandy Weill, then head of American Express, was looking for a way to encourage disadvantaged young people to work in the company’s back office. They set up the training course, only to find that 80% of the young people went off to university. He’s on record as saying it’s his “most successful failure ever”. The idea came to introduce a similar programme in the UK a couple of years ago – partly at Citigroup’s initiative, but in no small part through the drive of Ruth Silver, Principal of Lewisham College. The first pilot kicked off with three schools in London back in 2002.
What does a Career Academy course actually entail?
Over the two-year programme, sixth-formers receive an extra half-day teaching every week alongside their usual studies. The lessons provide the young people with a toolkit of generic skills, as well as specific information on personal finance and the financial services industry. We’ve worked with the business community to make sure the course material is right up to date, and we also train the teachers to guarantee they’re up to speed on the latest business issues. The material fits with the school curriculum, as well as other mainstream initiatives like the Young Enterprise programme. One new exciting development is our work with Edexcel, which should mean the course will hold the same UCAS points as a BTEC or AVCE.
And business involvement?
We try and ensure that all the young people have individual mentors from our business partners, who meet about ten times over the two years. There’s also a paid six-week internship half way through the course, as well as one-off courses that our partner companies put on. So Freshfields did an afternoon seminar on legal finance recently, for example.
What do your corporate partners get out of it?
A lot of companies are working either to support employability or education; Career Academies bring those agendas together.
There’s also lots being done at primary and early secondary level, but very little in the post-16 sector. Then, of course, there’s the traditional HR benefits, particularly around skill development.
What are your plans for the future?
Well, 40 have so far completed the course – the vast majority of whom have gone on to university. We’ve got a further 250 students joining in September, and we’ll be working with the Centre for Education and Industry at Warwick University to get a better idea of the programme’s impact.
John May, Chief Executive, UK Career Academy FoundationJohn May studied drama at university, before going into teaching. Head of a primary school at the age of 28, he held the status for a while as the UK’s youngest headmaster.In 1999, John joined Business in the Community as director of education – a position he held until taking up his current post in March 2003. Set up as an independent non-profit, the Career Academy Foundation has over 20 corporate partners, including Citigroup, AstraZeneca, McGraw- Hill and Credit Suisse First Boston. John is a former non-executive director of UNICEF. He is also a judge of the National Teaching Awards, and is a Fellow of the RSA.Widening access to further education represents a key challenge if Britain is going to have a competitive, diverse workforce in the future.
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