Page 22 - Professionalising-career-guidance-practitioner-competences-and-qualification-routes-in-Europe

The Ministries of Education and of Labour and Social Affairs in Spain launched integrated
centres for vocational training in 2005. These centres, incorporating information and career
guidance services, aim to assist people in taking appropriate career decisions throughout life.
They have responsibilities for evaluation of in-service and non-formal training in relation to
Spain’s national system of qualifications and vocational training. A later decree added further
responsibility for providing guidance for self-employment and the development of entrepreneurial
skills.
In Romania, following a regulation in 2005, the Ministry of Education established 42
centres for resources and educational assistance (CIRAE). Operating at county level, these
institutions manage, coordinate and evaluate the activities both of the guidance and
counselling centres and of the associated centres for inclusive education and for speech
therapy services.

These are positive moves in making services visible and understandable to the public.

1.4.3. Managing diffusion

Some countries have moved in other directions, and are now reevaluating the impact of their
current methods of delivering services. Removal of the State monopoly on career guidance
services in Germany has resulted in a mix of different services, but there now appears to be
a widely held view that getting in touch with public vocational guidance services has become
more complicated and less transparent for users. A government-sponsored review from 2005
to 2007 (Niedlich et al., 2007) has suggested that those most in need of additional support
(for example, those with disabilities) might be most at risk of not accessing suitable services.
A key outcome has been recognition of the need for policies which increase quality,
transparency and professionalisation in a heterogeneous field, and which provide proactive
services for those with non-traditional career histories.
The OECD review of career guidance and public policy (OECD, 2004, p. 148) challenged
policy-makers ‘to consider how a comprehensive approach can be achieved through a
combination of some or all of the existing models’. One response to this challenge has been
a growth in networking and regional cooperation.
In Austria, network projects have been established to put in place the actions on lifelong
guidance which were identified within a national lifelong learning strategy. The networks are
led by one core partner in each province.
A similar pattern of development is seen in Germany’s Länder in a programme ‘Learning
regions: providing support for networks’, established in 2001. The intention is to bring
together important players from different educational sectors, not just for networking of
existing services but to develop new offers within an overall regional strategy.
Several countries have established national or regional lifelong guidance forums to
encourage closer collaboration between different forms of service provision (Cedefop,
2008b).

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