Page 63 - Professionalising-career-guidance-practitioner-competences-and-qualification-routes-in-Europe

4.3.8. Coverage of labour market, occupational and other opportunity information

To some degree, all courses cover labour market and wider societal issues related to the
role of guidance. Opportunity information, in a narrow sense, is rarely given much attention,
as this is seen as basic knowledge and is available via the well-developed dedicated Internet
sites and professional periodicals for guidance seekers and professionals.
Entrepreneurship is one of the modules of the diploma-level course. The courses at the
Danish School of Public Administration offer a more administrative and employment-oriented
training route. At present, the public employment service does not prioritise the guidance
component of their services, and thus the previously well-developed in-service PES training
has little to offer in terms of career guidance, supervision, interpersonal skills training, etc.
This is unfortunate, particularly when contrasted with the former 20-30 weeks of solid
in-service PES training which offered a major counselling and guidance skills training
component and supervision.
Paradoxically, and partly as an answer to these difficulties, a number of private training
providers are now selling their services to the PES, jobcentres and other actors in the field:
their short courses offer an introduction to specific areas of career guidance and counselling,
such as systemic coaching, appreciative inquiry, or solution-focused approaches.

4.3.9. Professional identity

Since the 1970s, teachers have been the main professional group in career guidance. This is
still the case to some degree, but there has been a deliberate policy swing away from this
group, favouring a new group of guidance specialists, with their own specialist training, as
depicted above. Many of these ‘new’ specialists are former guidance teachers who have
upgraded their formal qualifications and taken up a full-time career in guidance, in contrast to
the former dual/part-time professionals who continue to perform their guidance
responsibilities alongside broader teaching responsibilities. When psychometric testing was
the main guidance method (from 1880s to 1960s), professionalism was in the hands of
psychologists: teachers in guidance were merely seen as humble helpers in the guidance
process. This situation changed radically in the 1960s and 1970s, when career guidance
teachers were introduced as the main basic professional group in most guidance sectors.
Now Denmark seems to be on its way to a more balanced view, where there is a perceived
need for both career guidance specialists and for teachers; the latter have a particular role in
careers education, which is the foundation for lifelong guidance.

4.4. Ireland

4.4.1. Summary
Ireland established a National Guidance Forum after policy attention was focused on career
guidance during the OECD (2004) review and the Irish EU Presidency. Its work has
addressed quality assurance of services and the competence of career guidance staff. It has
also paid attention to the voice of citizens, both seeking their views and undertaking a study
to define the career competences which citizens need.

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