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Catherine Avent reviews some of the recent crop of careers guidance books and pamphlets.

Catherine Avent looks at a conference report which highlights the growing discrepancy between degree‐level work in science and the needs of employers.

Catherine Avent sorts through the mass of information about careers now available.

An important work has just been published by the Leeds University Vocational Guidance Research Unit. Catherine Avent takes an overall look at it, and Leonard Gray sees what is in it for the careers teacher.

Catherine Aventlooks at the findings of an American research project into careers guidance.

MANY YOUNG MEN reading for arts degrees aspire to careers in what they vaguely call ‘management in industry’ but until they reach the stage of interviews with industrial recruiters, it is often hard for them to get a clear picture of the work and prospects ahead of them. Careers masters in public and grammar schools have drawn attention to the glaring disparity between the mass of glossy brochures with which industrial concerns try to attract potential scientists and technologists, and the comparative scarcity of information for the boy proposing to study the humanities but not intending to enter such professions as law, teaching, or the Civil Service.

Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor … it is very easy to think of the cliches: ‘Are you happy in your work?’ ‘Schooldays are the happiest days of your life’. I used to think that this was one of the silliest things ever said by distinguished people on speech‐day platforms; because if a boy or girl is miserable at school (and many are) then it's a pretty grim outlook that he faces; and if in fact he is perfectly happy at school, it is still very discouraging for him to suppose that in the eyes of successful middle‐aged adults he will never be so happy again. If young people are to have life satisfaction, then surely they should be encouraged to be optimistic and forward‐looking.

Long before this year is over, we will probably be tired of hearing about International Women's Year! There is no doubt, however, that knowledgeable women can produce a good deal of evidence to show the need for some positive efforts, whether by legislation or otherwise, to overcome the discrimination which apparently prevents some able women from achieving their full career potential. The proposed legislation on equal opportunity has much in common with the legislation on racial equality, and in many ways the situation has parallels if one considers the two major groups of British subjects who are disproportionately represented amongst the lowest levels of occupation, with the worst pay and smallest chance of promotion.

Gone are the days when secondary school teachers could affect to ignore the existence of colleges of further education, or training schemes within the industry, to which many of their pupils would be proceeding as soon as they were allowed to leave school. Link schemes between schools and colleges are now commonplace and vary from the provision within a college of courses for individual subjects not available in schools to programmes in preparation for the transition from school to work, for pupils with limited educational achievements and no clear vocational aspirations. Bridging and foundation courses are laid on to help the less successful pupils to gain confidence by the acquisition of some skill which may not itself lead to a job, but which can at least be used to persuade an employer that the young person is likely to be trainable for some job he can offer. All this flexibility of provision has taken place in parallel with a marked extension of careers education and guidance, both within the schools and from the Careers Service.

Returning to their labours after the summer holidays, lecturers in FHE colleges may well view students with a somewhat jaundiced eye. We all have our own opinions about the younger generation and the way they react to us; but most of us do not take the trouble to write accounts of our work with students, and it is salutary from time to time to read what other people have troubled to formulate in the way of opinions about particular categories of the breed. There will therefore be a general welcome for three interesting paperbacks which have recently been produced on three different aspects of student life and work.