Construction’s tricky schools equation

How can more school students be encouraged to choose a career in construction? There’s no easy answer, but the consequences of inaction – a widening skills gap and loss of competitiveness – are stark. Elaine Knutt reports.

In March, Construction Industry Training Board chairman James Wates sent out a rallying call across the construction industry, urging contractors and employers to go “back to school”. Following CITB-funded research that found too many careers advisers in schools were portraying construction as the career of last resort and a rising generation was growing up misinformed about the range of construction careers open to them, Wates called on “50 employers to visit 50 schools” in 2014.

But the need to improve links between construction and the school population goes beyond the inadequate career guidance highlighted in the CITB’s Educating the Educators report, and James Wates’ DIY solution is unlikely to be big, bold or ambitious enough to deal with it. In fact, there’s increasing agreement that the industry needs to move away from the ad hoc approach it implies – and has characterised schools engagement so far – and towards a better organised, better structured way of getting its complex messages across to the 4,000 secondary schools in the UK.

Because the stakes are increasingly high. At one end of the employment spectrum, the CIOB-backed No more lost generations report highlighted impending skills gaps, an ageing workforce and the industry’s failure to recruit enough apprentices; at the other, employers are waking up to the slump in students on construction-related degree courses and an impending professional skills deficit.

These risks coincide with a demographic dip in the 16-18-year age group that will not just affect construction, but every other industry recruiting young people. Other careers options in the Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) family, the tech sector, health sector and others will be forming long – and often well-resourced – queues outside our schools.

This convergence of issues has been recognised by the bodies involved in delivering the government’s Construction 2025 agenda. Alasdair Reisner, chief executive of the Civil Engineering Contractors Association, tells CM that “various groups representing different parts of the industry are looking at whether a broader industry approach could deliver better results” with a view to publishing recommendations in the coming months. (Reisner says it’s not clear whether this document would have the imprint of the Construction Leadership Council, or its delivery group). “I hope we can move towards a bit more of a consistent approach to engaging the industry as a whole,” he adds.

In a separate initiative, a group of senior industry HR managers – coordinated by Mace’s HR director Tracey Locke – are discussing how their individual efforts to engage with schools and young people could create more aggregated impact. “We’ve started talking to our colleagues in other construction companies about how we can attract more talent into the industry – we’ve realised that we will all be fishing in the same pool for the same talent. A collaborative approach in the long run might help us meet the challenges the economy is throwing at us,” explains Helene Klein, head of business and talent at Mace.

Collaborative approach

But both initiatives are taking on a considerable challenge. At the moment, there are a bewildering variety of programmes trying to connect construction with young people making GCSE choices or post-16 decisions – CM has highlighted some here (see below). Some employers run their own in-house programmes, some form partnerships with schools near head office or major sites (often as part of “social value” compacts with clients and councils); others join non-construction initiatives run by charities or social enterprises. The focus can be purely on careers guidance, on raising low aspirations, or on augmenting a curriculum dominated by tests and exams. 

Plus, in recent years there has been a segmentation of schools that makes a “one-size-fits-all” strategy redundant. Local authorities now run only a minority of secondary schools, which are now outnumbered by free-standing academies, then there are free schools, studio schools and University Technical Colleges. All of them, according to Christine Townley, executive director of the Construction Youth Trust, should be mapped by an industry coordinator. “It’s clear companies are working with some schools and not others, so there needs to be a hub that makes sure all the activity is mapped. Every school needs to be exposed, whether it’s a school with high free school meals, or in the leafy suburbs.” As Townley says, the obvious candidate to step into this role would be the CITB.

In addition, there is little research quantifying the impact of programmes undertaken by the industry, or determining how successful the various options are. In one indication of what’s being achieved, the industry’s highest profile event – inviting young people to visit sites during Open Doors weekend – reached just 3,000 young people last year. In comparison, the STEM Ambassadors programme has trained 28,000 ambassadors and has engaged with nine out of 10 UK secondary schools.

Alison Watson, founding director of education company Class of Your Own (COYO), is concerned that all the industry’s efforts aren’t making much impact – and she has written to James Wates to say so. “There is a lot of careers awareness in schools, with STEM ambassadors visiting and so on, but it doesn’t have a lasting legacy. If someone hears a great talk about being a civil engineer, for instance, what do they do with that? Unless it’s joined up with something in the curriculum, it doesn’t achieve much.” She adds: “A lot of it is CSR and PR – it’s absolutely arm’s length stuff.”

The COYO approach is to inspire the teachers, and Watson feels that’s where the industry should be concentrating its efforts. “When a child says to the teacher, ‘when will I learn how to use quadratic equations in the real world’, too often the teacher doesn’t have an answer. There are great performing schools out there, but the teachers are still teaching to the test.” She describes being invited to a school “twilight” session – an after-hours CPD club for staff – and showing maths teachers how surveyors and site engineers used basic maths such as Pythagoras’ Theorem to set out a building. Experienced teachers struggled hopelessly with the hands-on practical exercise.

Another problem with the scatter-gun approach, according to Christine Townley of the CYT, is that young people tend to perceive companies, rather than an industry. “The industry is a competitive institution, but it needs to collaborate on this, so that young people see Construction Plc rather than just a company. We need some generic messaging about the industry, such as the difference between a contractor and a consultant.”

She also urges public sector clients to back their contractors’ efforts: “They need to push their supply chains to do this, or delivery will suffer.”

Suzannah Nichol, chief executive of the National Specialist Contractors’ Council raised the issue of schools engagement during the No more lost generations inquiry, and makes a similar point. “We look fragmented and we are fragmented, we need to pull everyone together and create a one-stop-shop construction resource that would be the face of construction for 13-15-year-olds,” she says.

On the scale of investment needed to achieve this, she says: “If we had a system and process, it would cost no more than the resources we spend at the moment, in terms of training CITB ambassadors and people giving up their time. But we need a script, a common programme.”

But at the CIOB, deputy chief executive Bridget Bartlett feels that the industry has already generated some great programmes for schools – and now needs to work out which bring most impact, which will stand the test of time, and how they can be resourced. “There have been some terrific initiatives over the last four to five years, that flounder due to the lack of ability to scale them up. If Construction 2025 is looking at this, they need to look at what’s out there, and find ways to scale them up.”

Bartlett is speaking from experience: a few years ago, the CIOB backed the b-live campaign that ran professionally-themed competitions in schools. But it subsequently became dominated by employers in the hospitality industry, and now seems to have disappeared off the careers map entirely.

Currently, there are several promising programmes that aspire to roll-out on a wider basis. The Construction Youth Trust is working with members of Laing O’Rourke’s “Young Guns” junior management team to examine how its successful “Budding Brunels” programme could be extended into every school. Young professionals deliver the programme, which involves school visits aimed at pupils on the university track, a site tour, and then competing for work placements. It’s sponsored by a variety of companies, with CYT particularly optimistic about an 18-month partnership with Crossrail that aims to reach 1,000 young people. CYT also hopes to launch a trades version called “Budding Builders”.

Then there’s the quiet success of Alison Watson’s Class of Your Own, a social enterprise that has developed an entire GCSE equivalent syllabus – now recognised by the Department for Education as a valid qualification for schools’ performance league tables – that sets students the challenge of designing, planning and running a classroom block for their school. Wates, Laing O’Rourke and BAM as well as CIBSE, the RICS and others, support the programme by adopting a school, with their staff giving teachers the specialist knowledge and industry insight they need to make the syllabus come alive. 

“It takes that step back into the curriculum now that the 14-19 diploma has gone and we’re waiting for the technical baccalaureate to come on stream,” notes the CIOB’s Bartlett, who is having meetings with Alison Watson to establish what support the CIOB could offer. “Entrepreneurial people like Alison come along with great ideas, but at the moment COYO depends on the interests of individual boards and there’s no consistency. Do we need to work with the local authorities to scale it up?”

Whatever the answer, there’s increasing agreement that the industry needs to think bigger and bolder about educating and inspiring the next generation. At the same time, making its presence felt in schools is in line with government policy on careers: new Department for Education guidance to schools published in April urges them to make more and stronger links with employers. With schools in future likely to be opening the door wider – to construction but also to every other industry with recruitment concerns – the industry needs to come up with a winning formula, and fast.

Initiatives to encourage school children into construction

This two-year-old initiative links 2,500 registered secondary schools with 13,500 volunteers in their regional area. Volunteers, who can sign up as individuals or under a company scheme, fill in profiles about their professional roles, and schools can then select the best “matches” via a secure online platform – a bit like online dating. Since it kicked off in July 2012, schools have sent 20,000 messages asking for volunteer support in holding careers fairs, speed networking events, or at careers insight talks.

“The schools are the customer – they know their student audience best,” says Phil Pyatt, programme director.

Volunteers can be at any stage in their careers, from first jobbers to senior directors. The organisation is recruiting 1,000 volunteers a month and hopes to grow to 100,000 volunteers, but concedes that construction is currently under-represented at just “several hundred” volunteers. It’s aimed mainly at the 14-18 age group, but is also extending into primary schools. The scheme is backed by Educators and Employers a charity which also runs Speakers for Schools.

Comment: A rapidly expanding straightforward option for busy professionals.

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Charity Business in the Community runs a schools engagement programme called Business Class Partnership, where companies and partner schools commit to a three-year strategic relationship. BITC helps to create “clusters” of five to eight partnerships in one local area to share ideas and best practice, and has so far recruited 200 companies.

The emphasis is not just on careers and employability: employees also work with teachers on leadership and governance, extending the curriculum into work-related topics and enterprise. Since 2008, 50,000 young people have been involved in 350 partnerships, with BITC aiming for 75,000 in 500 schools by the end of 2014. BITC quotes its own research that says “employability has risen by 40% in partner schools.

Contractor Wates is one of five national champions in the programme, participating in eight Business Class Partnerships so far, but construction is also represented by Bouygues, Vinci, Costain, Interserve, BAM, Miller and Seddon. Companies pay £4,000 year to BITC to facilitate the local partnerships. BITC partner Goldman Sachs is also encouraging SMEs in its small business mentoring programme to become involved. 

Comment: Probably the Gold Standard of corporate engagement with schools, but it’s geared to raising aspirations generally rather than promoting the industry.

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The STEMNet not-for-profit organisation is funded by grants from the Department for Education, Department for Business Innovation and Skills and the Scottish Government and supported by key institutions in the STEM sector, such as the Royal Academy of Engineering. There are 28,000 STEM ambassadors, of which 40% are women, who visit schools to deliver careers talks, networking events, practical activities and hands-on demonstrations.

“It helps break down the stereotypes and encourages an understanding of what certain industries look like – a lot of teachers themselves don’t understand what careers are like in industry,” says Claire Scotter, head of communications.

Alongside the ambassador network, STEMNet runs the STEM Advisory Network, which works directly with teachers to establish links between the curriculum topics and working life, and also helps schools set up after-school STEM Clubs, which are part-funded by DfE. STEMnet has been running the programme for 10 years, and a recent interim report on its impact on young people found that 85% of teachers said the scheme had increased pupil engagement in STEM subjects.

Comment: Strong on impact, but having central government funding no doubt helps considerably.

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First launched in 2008 by Class of Your Own, the DEC syllabus teaches design, surveying and project and cost management skills by taking groups through the process of designing an environmentally sustainable “class of their own”. The curriculum is offered at three different levels, including GCSE.

Twenty companies and institutions have so far signed up to adopt one school each, helping teachers to deliver the programme, and providing site visits and mentoring opportunities. Companies, or consortia of local employers, commit to a two-year relationship with their school, at a cost of £6,000 a year. It’s already been proven as a means of guiding young people into construction careers: East Riding council has offered BIM apprenticeships to two DEC graduates.

Comment: Excellent effort, but requiring one employer per school could make it difficult to scale up.

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This social enterprise start-up connects young people with the world of work via online challenges. Employers devise a work-related challenge, and young people submit their proposals either individually or in school-related groups. Crossrail has recently used the platform to set a challenge for young women aged 16 to 19, asking them to come up with innovative and compelling ways to attract more women to the industry. From the entrants, 30 will be invited to the Crossrail site at Canary Wharf on National Women in Engineering Day.

Other current challenges are being set by nPower, Nestle and Lloyds Bank, while Arup previously set a challenge around predicting life in 2050. The site has a user base of 11,000 registrations. Challenges are always accompanied with pdf teaching materials, which teachers can use in the classroom.

Comment: Sounds fun, but operating at a fairly small scale at the moment.

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Mace will shortly hold its second Careers in Construction Week, a programme of presentations, interactive challenges and site visits to on-going and completed projects for 30 15-17-year-olds. The year 11 and 12 students apply from a number of London schools that Mace is forging links with.

The initiative is a junior version of its Insight Week for first and second year undergraduates, and is a recognition of the need to encourage more talented young people to choose the construction track when they make A-level and degree choices. Looking at the UCAS statistics on first year undergraduates on construction-related degrees – which have seen a 40% drop since 2008 – head of talent Helene Klein says that “2016 is going to be an interesting year for graduate recruitment.”

Comment: An intensive programme, but only time will tell if its graduates really do choose construction.

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