Page 20 - european-lifelong-guidance-policies-progress-report

Section 2: Work Package reports

education systems across Europe, common the education sector, especially in respect to
ground and common trends can be identified. the need for a shared understanding of CMS
These include the connections that are being development and related work methodologies.
made between teaching, student-centred learn- It is equally important for PES staff to build
ing, student services, and co-operation with on the CMS that have already been developed
employers. These connections lead to new by career guidance workers and teachers in the
kinds of learning settings which support work- education sector.
related, self-reflective learning, underpinned by
CMS. In relation to the training of staff involved in delivering
CMS: WP1
In relation to CMS in Public Employment Service (PES) • There is a noticeable shift away from an
contexts: approach in the training of career guidance
• In PES settings, it is useful to differentiate staff that is mostly based on psychology to
between employment advisers who focus one that is more constructionist and multi-
mainly on job broking and placement, and disciplinary in nature.
those with more advanced skills who provide • ‘Employability’ should be a central concept in
deeper elements of career guidance, and who the training of career guidance staff, supporting
are usually more focused on personal assess- the melding of individual and organisational
ment, on personal action planning, and on lon- approaches, and emphasising the training of
ger-term career development. The latter require competences for life, not just for work.
targeted training in order to deliver CMS more
effectively. In relation to the assessment of CMS learning:
• In Public Employment Service settings, the • In assessing CMS learning, the emphasis
focus on employability should not reduce CMS should not only be on savoir and savoir faire,
to an exclusive concern with ‘immediacy’, i.e. but also on the savoir être dimension, typical of
what works in the short-term to enable individ- a rounded education.
uals to enter the world of work. Other aspects • Portfolios are an appropriate strategy to assess
of their formation, such as active citizenship, or career learning, in that they facilitate critical
competences in creativity and critical analysis, reflection on the part of learners (whether
are also important. young or adult), focus on process rather than
• Basic CMS that serve the unemployed in get- merely on outcomes, and provide opportuni-
ting ahead in the employment queue include: ties for learners to interact with others in order
mastery of reading, writing and mathematics to engage in meaningful career conversations.
skills, a sense of initiative and of creativity, the Furthermore, portfolios help to centralise infor-
ability to be self-directed in looking for oppor- mation and reflection in one ‘physical’ space,
tunities, persistence, flexibility and adaptability, enabling coherence in the learner’s thinking
optimism, risk-taking, knowing how to work in and research relating to employment.
teams, and remaining open to learning. • Some portfolios strive to look at career learn-
• In some national settings, PES provide an all- ing from a lifelong perspective. Such ‘lifelong’
age guidance service setting up a formal or an approaches can support career guidance prac-
implicit standard of CMS development. In such tices that give pride of place to approaches
cases it is important to develop effective models informed by constructivist psychology, with
of co-operation between the employment and an emphasis on meta-cognition and on the

19