National Careers Week 2023

This week is ‘National Careers Week’, a week dedicated to helping young people think about their future career.

It’s too easy to look down on careers advice, with many of us having experienced poor training in the past which amounted to little more than time off from school work, However, it has a vital role to play in addressing inequality.

The talent necessary to fill a job could come from any part of our society, but for those without obvious connections into different employment sectors even the option of looking for a job in that sector might not occur to them, never mind understanding the steps necessary to get there or having the cultural capital to access some of the more snooty professions.

For Crawley this is a particularly major issue, with the town being rated the lowest social mobility in the entire region and one of the worst in the country. Unfortunately, with the withdrawal of Government funding and support, large numbers of schools no longer provide any form of work experience, cutting many children off from important new experiences.

Labour has pledged to ensure young people leave education life-ready and job-ready, including through the delivery of professional careers guidance at local schools. Ensuring every young person gets professional information, advice and guidance on their future study and career options alongside two weeks worth of work experience while at secondary schools, helping students to make informed choices about their future.