Seema Malhotra MP, centre, with Katie-Jane Pike assistant principal at City and Islington College, Candi executive principal Kurt Hintz, Cllr Praful Nargund, Ruben Bonomo, Angelina Torres Garcia, Ella Dupen, Tonya Giglie, Quluuda Ahmed, Lidiany Nogueira, Mobasherah Sabet and Melissa Fearon

GREATER support is needed for those who want to pursue practical education, say students.

On Monday morning, shadow skills secretary, MP Seema Malhotra, paid a visit to City and Islington College’s Finsbury Park campus to hear how students doing apprenticeships, short courses, and T-levels felt practical education is valued.

Ella Dupen, 30, currently in her second year of veterinary nursing apprenticeship, said: “We were always told in secondary school that if we didn’t go to university, we weren’t going to do anything with our lives.”

She added: “It’s ridiculous. If I hadn’t had that stupid pressure put on me, I would have taken the time I needed – we didn’t have any career guidance – we were just told we had to go to uni. I would take the time to realise I could have done an apprenticeship and realised there were paths for people who don’t want to go to uni and write essays for three years.

“I would have started my career a lot earlier, and I’d probably be in a lot better of a place financially in my life.”

Lidiany Nogueira is doing a T-level in science and hopes to become a pharmacist.

“If I hadn’t had a career advisers’ department I would have no clue what I was going to do, and I would just quickly rush and pick an A-level subject,” she said.

“We need more knowledge about ‘if I pick this course, what’s going to happen?’ … If there was more support I think it would be really helpful and there would be less unemployment for young people.”

Ms Malhotra said, “One of the things that we have said is that we need more career advisers at schools.

“We made that as a commitment for something that we’d want to see changed if the government doesn’t do it before the election and, if we win, that we place 1,000 new career advisers in schools. And, as well as that, it enables some more contact with the workplace.”

She also said Labour want to do a comprehensive review of the curriculum.