Page 14 - Educational-Iceland

In the former case, graduation is a pre-requisite of getting a job e.g. as a skilled l provide information and counselling on educational opportunities and career pathways;
journeyman. In the latter, anyone can take up the trade in question, although those who
graduate from these studies have priority over those who do not. In reality, it is rare for an
unqualified person to get such a job. In order to enter universities, vocational students
must add on to their general education, e.g. languages and mathematics;
l Agricultural schools. Agricultural school students graduate with valid working qualifications
and can continue studying at agricultural universities;
l Art schools. Graduates get neither certain job rights nor the rights to further
studies in Iceland;
l Household schools. There are a few, small schools which offer training in various
household related subjects, such as cooking, serving food, cleaning, needlework, sewing,
etc. They are boarding schools and traditionally all students have been female but in the
latter years, males have also started studying there. Graduates get up to 30 credits that
should help them get jobs in e.g. canteens. These credits do not give access to any further
education and training;
l Special schools for certain professions, e.g. fire fighters, police officers and custom
officers. The training in these school is job related and is a necessary pre-requisite for
getting the job in question.
Some vocational schools offer specific bridging courses for those who want to enter
universities but do not have a matriculation exam.
In the Upper Secondary School Act it is stipulated that ‘Students have the right to educational
3
and vocational counselling carried out by specialists in the field ’.
According to the Act, the main tasks of the guidance counsellors are to:
l organise and implement career educational programmes;
3 Here, it must be added that due to financial cuts in upper secondary schools following the economic crisis of 2008, guidance counsellors are most often
the only support staff hired by them. Thus, there are usually no psychologists, social workers or support teachers on the payroll and therefore counsellors
often have to play all these roles.
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l participate in various activities in order to enhance pupils’ welfare and conditions;
l supervise the clients’ educational progress and suggest solutions when needed;
l support teachers when dealing with school-related problems and advise them
in supervising classes;
l contact parents and legal guardians of students under the age of 18 when needed;
l report every year on the activities undertaken.
Around 90% of all compulsory school graduates start upper secondary education but the
dropout rate is very high and Iceland has one of the highest percentage of early school
leavers in Europe. Almost a third of all adults in the labour market had only compulsory
education in 2015. This percentage has been falling slightly in recent years but it is still
far too high, according to a White Paper on Improvements in Education, published by the
Ministry for Education, Science and Culture in 2014.
One of the main reasons for the high dropout rate seems to be that many students work
alongside their studies, which increases the likelihood of low success rates at the school,
which again increase the likelihood of dropping out. In other words, most early school leavers
can be defined as either ‘positive leavers’ (leaving in order to take up a job) or ‘opportune
leavers’ (have not decided on what they want but take an available job and may later return
to school).
The Ministry of Education, Science and Culture appointed a special task force early in
2007 to put forth suggestions on how to decrease school dropout. The group’s main
recommendations were to increase educational and vocational counselling, both in
compulsory and upper secondary schools, to ensure that all guidance counsellors have
the relevant university education and to appoint a special project manager in the Ministry
of Education who would be in charge of implementing counselling policies. It is also
recommended that a national forum on counselling be established.
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