Page 61 - Professionalising-career-guidance-practitioner-competences-and-qualification-routes-in-Europe

Attempts to introduce a bachelor’s level degree have come to fruition in 2008 with a
programme in public administration (210 ECTS) at three university colleges. The programme
includes a 90 ECTS specialisation in career guidance, including a practicum of 20 ECTS.
The programme offers a qualification route for younger people aiming at the career guidance
profession, alongside a number of other possible specialisations such as human resource
management, social work and employment management. This, along with a postgraduate
diploma in employment management introduced in 2007 at five university colleges, marks
the opening of a qualification route for people in the public employment sector, with their
training sitting alongside that of other career professionals.

4.3.4. Master of career guidance, candidate and PhD training
One step up the educational hierarchy, aimed at leaders of guidance units, researchers,
developers, and policy-makers, a master’s degree in career guidance is offered at the
Danish University of Education. This is a four-module, 60 ECTS points course, over two
years, which attracts mature students with substantial experience in career guidance and
related fields: approximately 30-50 students per year. The four modules are: career guidance
and career development theories; career guidance, society, and guidance policies; career
guidance methods; and a master’s thesis.
In addition, as a remnant from the German-inspired study structures of pre-Bologna times,
a candidate’s degree (Cand.Paed. with a specialisation in career guidance) is offered at the
Danish University of Education. It is a 60-ECTS-points course, which attracts some 20-30
students per year from a wide array of guidance-related fields.
Finally, five or six career guidance students are studying for a PhD degree at the
Guidance Research Unit of the Danish University of Education: this is the largest number
ever. These carefully selected students are likely to represent the coming generation of
Danish guidance researchers.
The overall picture is one of major investments, in terms of finance and time, in the
professionalisation of guidance counsellors across several sectors in Danish career
guidance. These are the formal training routes, and together they represent a major lift in the
competences of guidance counsellors, even at the basic diploma level. They represent what
the OECD study (2004) labelled ‘specialised career guidance qualifications’ in its five-part
typology of training routes.

4.3.5. Changes responding to the Lisbon strategy and the Bologna process
The policy goals of the Lisbon strategy, with its emphasis on economic growth and
competitiveness in an international knowledge economy, have been reflected in the aims of
Danish guidance policies and in the reform of guidance structures in 2004. Greater emphasis
on preventing educational drop-out, on swifter study routes, and on more direct links
between education and employment, including self-employment and entrepreneurship, has
been pronounced since the early 2000s. More specifically, in terms of the contents of the
training of guidance professionals, one of the new modules in the longer, 60-ECTS-points
training route (from 2007) was on ‘entrepreneurship in guidance’. This was no accident, as
the module heading was dictated by the Ministry of Education. In addition, employability, and

51