Department for Education written question – answered at on 15 January 2026.
Dr Caroline Johnson
Shadow Minister (Health and Social Care)
To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what assessment she has made of the adequacy of the (a) number and (b) variety of available work experience places for under 18s in the latest period for which data is available.
Josh MacAlister
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Education
Post-16 providers must record work placement activities as part of planned hours for each student for funding purposes and this data is not publicly available. Small scale sample audit checks are undertaken by the department.
Schools and colleges self-report institution level data on the proportion of students undertaking work experience by academic year. Data captured through the Compass+ online self-assessment tool shows that the Majority of students in 74% schools and colleges had an experience of the workplace in the 2024/25 academic year.
The department is funding the Careers & Enterprise Company to deliver the first phase of activity to prepare schools and employers to deliver the government’s commitment to ensure every pupil has access to two weeks’ worth of work experience during their secondary education.
Yes1 person thinks so
No0 people think not
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Secretary of State was originally the title given to the two officials who conducted the Royal Correspondence under Elizabeth I. Now it is the title held by some of the more important Government Ministers, for example the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.
The term "majority" is used in two ways in Parliament. Firstly a Government cannot operate effectively unless it can command a majority in the House of Commons - a majority means winning more than 50% of the votes in a division. Should a Government fail to hold the confidence of the House, it has to hold a General Election. Secondly the term can also be used in an election, where it refers to the margin which the candidate with the most votes has over the candidate coming second. To win a seat a candidate need only have a majority of 1.
