Select Committee Looking at Barriers to Accessing Work Experience for Students and Young People

The House of Commons Youth Select Committee has launched a new inquiry into barriers to work experience.

The Committee is calling for evidence from a wide range of witnesses, including businesses and charities, as well as students and young people who have been directly affected by these barriers.

The announcement comes as a YouGov poll reveals more than two-thirds of young people (71 per cent) are expecting it to be tougher to find a job in 2030 with 58 per cent of all 11-18 year olds citing a lack of work experience as a barrier.

On the agenda

This year, the committee will look at issues including:

• What does good quality work experience look like? 
• What do young people and businesses expect to get from it? 
• How important is good quality work experience to successful industrial strategy?
• What evidence is there that work experience boosts social mobility? 

The Youth Select Committee call for evidence closes on Monday 18th June 2018 and the Committee will hold oral evidence sessions in the House of Commons in July.

Who can submit evidence?

The Committee welcomes submissions from a wide range of stakeholders, including students, young people and the organisations that support them, businesses, universities and schools.

The Committee is particularly interested in hearing about the differing experiences of groups of students and young people experience in making the most of work experience (eg. due to ethnicity, gender, disability, socioeconomic background and geographic location) and how these might be overcome.

Submissions from students and young people are invited to answer any of the following questions:

• What does “good quality work experience” look like? 
• What do young people and businesses expect to get from it? 
• How important is good quality work experience to a successful industrial strategy?
• What evidence is there that work experience boosts social mobility? 
• How do differences between young people (eg. geographic location, socioeconomic background, ethnicity, disability) affect the work experience opportunities they people have?
• How could resources to help young people find out about and access work experience be improved? 

Evidence can be submitted by contacting the British Youth Council via email here.

Those interested can also submit evidence directly to Parliament via post to Clerk of the Youth Select Committee c/o Work and Pensions Committee, House of Commons, SW1A 0AA.