Page 51 - Professionalising-career-guidance-practitioner-competences-and-qualification-routes-in-Europe

programme employs a blended learning approach i.e. a combination of workshops and
e-learning. Guidance counsellors who successfully complete all three modules receive a
special purpose diploma at level 8 of the 10-level Irish national framework of qualifications
(NFQ).
Poland has created an e-learning platform for vocational counsellors, the Multimedia
Workshop Centre, which aims to help career guidance counsellors to improve their
qualifications.
E-guidance features in a master’s course which has its main focus on e-counselling. This
development in Germany, by Georg-Simon-Ohm-Hochschule in collaboration with the
Grundig Akademie Nuremberg, focuses on international standards and is developed for
German-speaking countries. Topics are wide-ranging, and include the study of electronic
media in the context of guidance.

3.3. Practicum

The term ‘practicum’ is used here in a generic and inclusive sense to cover both the use of
employment workplace experiences, for those who are undertaking training while in
employment, and the use of short-term work-experience placements and internships that
may be arranged by the course organisers for full-time students. Work-experience
placements can either be loose and observational in nature, or can be a vehicle for practice
which is then the base for either reflective learning (perhaps through specific case studies,
for example) or for actual assessment tasks relating to qualification. Such tasks might be
observed and assessed interviews or group-work sessions, detailed and reflective case
studies of the student’s experience, or case studies of, for example, occupations (job
studies) and labour market information.
Practicum occupies a place in the overlap between academic study and
competence-based accreditation, and is therefore pertinent to both aspects of this study.
Contributors reported many different instances of its use, although it should also be noted
that a significant number of contributors indicated that no particular links were made between
theoretical study and practical experience in the training provision they outlined.
The most developed example of the integration of theoretical learning and practicum is in
the University of Applied Science of the Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) based in Mannheim,
Germany. This is described as follows: ‘In order to link the theory and practice as closely
together as possible the study course has a dual structure. Five trimesters of university study
are complemented by four trimesters of internship, supervised by the university (project
work). These are undertaken in departments of the Bundesargentur für Arbeit (BA) in
companies and other organisations. Placements abroad are also possible’.
In Ireland, some courses (at NUI Maynooth) place strong emphasis on reflective practice.
A key element of the assessment for the adult guidance diploma is four transcribed and
reflective accounts of real interviews with real clients. NCGE’s CPD programme, using an
action research approach (see Section 3.2.), specifically addresses the development of
reflective practice.
From Sweden, a university-based trainer reports an interest in the balance between
practical training and academic study. The degree course concerned has about 20 weeks of

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