Page 18 - Educational-Iceland

All universities offer guidance services, the most usual being:
5. Guidance in universities
Seven institutions offer tertiary education. Four of them are run by the state, the other three
are private. To be allowed admission, students are required to have passed the matriculation
examination, have finished other equivalent education or have, in the view of the university
in question, acquired equivalent maturity and knowledge. The universities can impose further
admission requirements, including admission tests.
Degrees on offer are diploma, bachelor, master and doctorate. Typical study time varies and
it is common that people (re)enter university after several years of working. The main norm
is that bachelor’s studies take three years, master’s degree another two and doctoral studies
another two or three.
18
l personal counselling;
l group counselling;
l management of services for students with disabilities;
l counselling on study-related problems and facilitating learning environment;
l evaluating and designing research in given fields, providing information on educational
opportunities locally and internationally;
l (at the University of Iceland) teaching and training students e.g. at the guidance study
programmes mentioned above. Other universities offer workplace training for students
in counselling.
Guidance counsellors working at university level refer their clients to databanks on the
Internet and to specialised information offices.
Open consulting hours are on offer at both the University of Iceland and the University of
Reykjavík, which also offer e-guidance and have their own Facebook pages.
Annually, the University Day is held, where all the universities in Iceland introduce their
education offers and counselling services. Additionally, upper secondary schools are visited
and a special emphasis is placed on visiting schools outside Reykjavík.
19