National Life/Career Competences Framework

The development of a National CMS framework – blueprint as a basis for the assessment of attained CMS among employed and unemployed people and as the guiding principles for their further learning has been a recommendation of both the ELGPN network [1] and the COUNCIL RECOMMENDATION of 22 May 2018 on key competences for lifelong learning[2].

The National Life/Career Competences Framework developed by the Pedagogical Department of Secondary Education of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens on behalf of EOPPEP, describes the components of five life and career macro – abilities that play a catalytic role in shaping people's future life and career plans. It collects indicative activities for the development of these five skills, brings together indicative tools for assessing them and identifies specific learning outcomes that reflect what an individual is expected to know, understand, apply, and demonstrate by a particular level of proficiency. 

The five macro – abilities, consist of individual "smaller" interconnected abilities and should be developed from the early age up to adult life through education, VET and career guidance activities. They are categorized into 3 categories (see table below) and described with the help of 39 descriptive indicators that lead to 156 individual learning outcomes. The outcomes of each indicator are further divided into four levels of proficiency (basic, intermediate, advanced, supreme) that reflect the four stages of Kolb’s circle of experiential learning.

Example:

Ability: Emotional Intelligence

Indicator 3: Self-control

Intermediate Learning outcome: Learner is able to understand how emotions affect his behavior and the behavior of others

The methodology of the Framework consisted of 1. a bibliographic review recording the various skill typologies and corresponding European and international frameworks 2.  a field research in career guidance and educational institutions, training providers and companies of different economic disciplines and 3. workshops with representatives of policy-making organizations as well as social partners from the fields of education and training in order to draw data around the learning outcomes from different groups of users for a range of beneficiaries such as students, counselors etc and for shaping a solid theoretical and methodological background.

Each skill is complemented with the methods, tools and techniques, based on which one can develop or even cultivate (in the case of self-education) the ability, depending on the level of competence of the beneficiary.

The tools proposed by the framework do not conduct a psychometric evaluation of skills. However, based on the results of the tools the individual will be able to design or redesign his personal plan (e.g. engage in a new learning experience aimed at personal / professional improvement, to ask support from a specialist and so on), in order to reshape his / her goals, take decisions and become a protagonist in his / her career and life.

[1] http://www.elgpn.eu/publications/browse-by-language/english/elgpn-tools-no-4-career-management-skills-brief-summary

[2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:32018H0604(01)