I was talking to the Head of Careers at a school this week. During the discussion, she mentioned that one of her biggest problems is arranging work experience. I can understand that as it involves liaising with many businesses in the area, twisting a few arms, calling in a few favours - all the kinds of things that MP’s are good at. In the middle of the conversation though, she mentioned something that I found staggering …
Her school spends £10 K per year arranging these work experience opportunities for year 10’s. Guess what the money gets spent on? Travel or perhaps useful resources? No. The school spends this money on … wait for it … HEALTH AND SAFETY CHECKS.
So there are loads of companies out there coining it by conducting health and safety checks on the good people who are prepared to provide work experience opportunities. It this weren’t so serious, it would be laughable. Firstly, spending money on health and safety checks is essentially money peed down the drain - there is no return on this investment. Secondly and more importantly, this school (and there are plenty of others) are reconsidering whether they can afford work experience for their students. In a way, that’s good for us, because we provide career resources for students. However, we would never suggest doing away with work experience opportunities - they are probably the most important experience to have when coming to terms with how the world of work functions.How will students make the right kind of decisions about their futures? Services such as the Career Foundations Programme can solve this problem, but not everyone has the money to spend.
This health and safety stuff is a load of bollocks - it’s like a cancer in our society. It costs us billions every year and produces absolutely nothing. A safety first philosophy will never create anything great. It’s these kinds of constraints that make ongoing educational and economic competitiveness more and more difficult and increasingly unlikely.
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