Page 35 - Professionalising-career-guidance-practitioner-competences-and-qualification-routes-in-Europe

and non-graduate entrants, who undertake a common teaching programme, but are
expected to meet different assessment criteria, suggesting the recognition here, as
elsewhere, of different levels of competence (Roefels and Sanders, 2007). Progression is
possible from the part-time certificate (a post-entry requirement for all FÁS staff) through
diploma and higher diploma levels and on to master’s-level courses.
In Hungary, the public employment service recruits a small percentage of its staff from the
first-cycle higher education degree course at Szent Istvan University, Gödöllő, where they
have trained alongside a greater proportion of students aiming to work in the country’s
pedagogical institutes. Currently some 170 staff hold this qualification, and a further small
number (between 10 and 15 in total) have completed a part-time postgraduate course in
employment and career counselling at Eotvas University, Budapest, where about half of their
fellow students will have come from the private sector, usually the HR function in large
private-sector firms.
There is also a trend in several countries towards more compulsory training in career
guidance for some staff in public employment services. In Poland, initial employment as a
vocational counsellor in the public employment service’s labour offices requires
graduate-level qualifications. However, a new licensing system introduced in 2004 comprises
three levels, with promotion to the second level requiring completion of post-diploma studies
in vocational counselling. Recent changes in both Iceland and Malta, extending the
availability of specialised postgraduate training (see Section 2.2. above), are a step towards
making such qualification compulsory.
This does not appear to be the norm. In many countries, the study has revealed a picture
of training being offered on a more ad hoc basis. This raises questions about whether
training is equally accessed by all relevant staff, or only by those with higher levels of
commitment or ambition; which, in turn, leads to concerns about the overall quality of delivery
of services. McCarthy (2004, p. 160) notes that ‘training may be regarded for most countries
as the only quality assurance mechanism that exists for guidance’.
There is little evidence that even this limited attention to quality is sufficiently applied in all
countries. In Norway, PES staff can access the Career guidance counsellor training
(30 ECTS) offered by several regional higher education colleges, but we have no data on
how many do so.
In Belgium, most counsellors are graduates in psychology or social work, both in VDAB
(Flanders) and in FOREM (French community). In both settings, the roles of career
counselling and job placement are clearly demarcated, but training is limited and not
systematic; it is only compulsory for those who do not have a tenured position.
The Czech Republic’s public employment service recruits career guidance counsellors at
first- or second-cycle higher education level, but without specific requirements about the
subject of study. A new employment law in 2004 set up a series of ‘active employment policy’
measures, but no specific action has been taken to address the training needs of those
delivering these measures.
The public employment services in both Estonia and Slovenia recruit graduates with a
degree in psychology and offer in-service training. Estonia has a continuing programme of
in-service training for such staff, but with a small time commitment; in Slovenia, previously

29