25 February 2026
No, Radio 4, careers advice in schools isn’t awful, it’s just underfunded
On the Today programme on Wednesday 25th February, one of the presenters, Emma Barnett, had an interview with Lucy Calloway OBE, a co-founder of Now Teach, following up on the popularity of a clip from Reese Witherspoon on encouraging people to ‘follow their talents rather than their dreams’.
Towards the start of the interview (around one hour and 44 minutes into the programme) Emma states that “careers advice…is notoriously awful or just non-existent in our schools.” Lucy then responds that “Yes, its absolutely terrible. I mean there are efforts at the minute to make it better but my God it’s starting from a low base.”
There are some elements of the interview that are valid – such as young people needing more experiences of the world of work – but the whole discussion was based on a deeply negative, uninformed and outdated view of careers guidance in schools.
At another point, the two discussed the careers advice they had received in school, with Emma being told she should work in a funeral parlour. While this will have been their experience (and mine was similar), they’re talking about a system from probably 25 years ago and which is much changed since then. In what other sphere’s would the Today programme reference a service based on how it was decades ago? Can you imagine discussing the current state of computing based on how it worked in the 1990s?
The fundamental problem with this interview is that, in a story directly about careers guidance, Radio 4 decided to interview someone who does not work in careers guidance. The media so often engage teachers and school leaders on stories about careers guidance, ignoring the very people who are best placed to actually comment. Yes, teachers play an important role, but would they interview a careers adviser about the current state of teaching? There are around 15,000 career development professionals working in the UK, many in schools and colleges. The CDI has funded media training for a number of practitioners. So there is no shortage of people to choose from.
I’m not saying there aren’t issues in careers guidance provision in schools – quite the opposite. The CDI have been very clear that, while we have very good frameworks in place in England, with the Gatsby Benchmarks, CEC support, Quality in Careers Standard and more, provision remains far too variable across schools. There are amazing examples of outstanding careers work, examples recognised every year in the UK Career Development Awards, yet we know there are also schools who have very limited resource, personal guidance meetings as short as 15 minutes and careers programmes that are not embedded across the school.
This discussion was a great opportunity to educate listeners on the value of high-quality careers guidance and to call for better funding, more resources and careers being a higher priority in schools, but instead it was ill-informed, outdated and unnecessarily negative.
I have written to the Today programme to raise these issues with this segment and suggest that if they want to discuss careers guidance then they might want to invite someone from the profession to contribute. I have also suggested it might be helpful for Emma Barnett to attend this year’s UK Career Development Awards to bring her views of careers guidance up to date.
You can also write to the Today programme at [email protected].
Towards the start of the interview (around one hour and 44 minutes into the programme) Emma states that “careers advice…is notoriously awful or just non-existent in our schools.” Lucy then responds that “Yes, its absolutely terrible. I mean there are efforts at the minute to make it better but my God it’s starting from a low base.”
There are some elements of the interview that are valid – such as young people needing more experiences of the world of work – but the whole discussion was based on a deeply negative, uninformed and outdated view of careers guidance in schools.
At another point, the two discussed the careers advice they had received in school, with Emma being told she should work in a funeral parlour. While this will have been their experience (and mine was similar), they’re talking about a system from probably 25 years ago and which is much changed since then. In what other sphere’s would the Today programme reference a service based on how it was decades ago? Can you imagine discussing the current state of computing based on how it worked in the 1990s?
The fundamental problem with this interview is that, in a story directly about careers guidance, Radio 4 decided to interview someone who does not work in careers guidance. The media so often engage teachers and school leaders on stories about careers guidance, ignoring the very people who are best placed to actually comment. Yes, teachers play an important role, but would they interview a careers adviser about the current state of teaching? There are around 15,000 career development professionals working in the UK, many in schools and colleges. The CDI has funded media training for a number of practitioners. So there is no shortage of people to choose from.
I’m not saying there aren’t issues in careers guidance provision in schools – quite the opposite. The CDI have been very clear that, while we have very good frameworks in place in England, with the Gatsby Benchmarks, CEC support, Quality in Careers Standard and more, provision remains far too variable across schools. There are amazing examples of outstanding careers work, examples recognised every year in the UK Career Development Awards, yet we know there are also schools who have very limited resource, personal guidance meetings as short as 15 minutes and careers programmes that are not embedded across the school.
This discussion was a great opportunity to educate listeners on the value of high-quality careers guidance and to call for better funding, more resources and careers being a higher priority in schools, but instead it was ill-informed, outdated and unnecessarily negative.
I have written to the Today programme to raise these issues with this segment and suggest that if they want to discuss careers guidance then they might want to invite someone from the profession to contribute. I have also suggested it might be helpful for Emma Barnett to attend this year’s UK Career Development Awards to bring her views of careers guidance up to date.
You can also write to the Today programme at [email protected].
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