Page 56 - european-lifelong-guidance-policies-progress-report

Section 4: Evaluation

erogeneous issues identified in the implementation intended for use in developing and implementing
of the Work Programme and to integrate them into career development programmes in the education
a coherent package. The Resource Kit reflected the system and public employment services. WP4 pro-
main themes of the Work Programme and presented duced a detailed proposal for a Quality-Assurance
useful steps for developing a national lifelong guid- and Evidence-base (QAE) Framework, plus a Careers
ance system. Members saw it as a relevant updating Service Impact Inventory to examine the impact of
of the 2004 EU common reference tools for lifelong career services at institutional level: these tools can
guidance, taking into account the new Europe 2020 be used as a basis for developing national bench-
priorities. The kit illustrated the contextual differ- marks on lifelong guidance.
ences between the countries, which were implicitly The members indicated a number of ways in which
integrated in its tools. However, some members indi- they planned to use the Resource Kit. Some coun-
cated that the Resource Kit was too general in nature, tries will translate the tools into their national lan-
offering limited practical solutions to the problems guage. In some, the tools will be used by national
policy-makers were facing on a daily basis. Other forums or working groups comprising policy-makers
members felt that this was still work in progress, rep- and national experts. The various sections of the
resenting an important first step towards preparing kit allow countries if they wish to choose particu-
a more elaborate tool for policy-makers and other lar fields of work without necessarily dealing with
stakeholders to review existing lifelong guidance pro- the whole national guidance system at once. Other
vision in countries and regions. members indicated that the Resource Kit will be used
It should be noted that the strong element of in reviewing national lifelong guidance strategies, in
collective participation in the production of the national educational reforms, in defining priorities
Resource Kit involved some compromises in terms for national ESF projects, and in developing training
of technical quality and consistency. The Network programmes for guidance practitioners.
consists of a heterogeneous group of national repre-
sentatives with varying roles and professional back-
grounds. This provides a rich range of professional 4.5 Impact at national level
and policy perspectives, but these may not always
be applied evenly. For example, the selection of the During its two first phases, ELGPN facilitated shar-
national case studies were based on the proposals ing of good practices and mutual learning between
of the Work Packages rather than on consistent and European countries. One of the goals during the Evaluation
agreed quality criteria. As a whole, the Resource Kit 2011-12 Work Programme was to strengthen impact
represents a tangible product for use at national at national level.
and regional levels in member countries, but may The participating countries designate their repre-
need improvement following field testing during the sentatives in the network. The working assumption is
2013–14 Work Programme. that each national delegation will include both gov-
In the process of preparing the Resource Kit, the ernmental and non-governmental representatives.
Work Packages developed other complementary tools One of the goals in 2011–12 was to strengthen the
to support its implementation. These are reported national representation. As in the previous phases
in Annexes 5-8 of this report. WP1 collected data of ELGPN, the member countries adopted different
from member countries to develop Guidelines for strategies for involving relevant ministries. Of the
Career Management Skills Development, as well as 29 country delegations, 27 included a representative
a description of success factors in the implementa- of the education ministry; 15 included representa-
tion of lifelong guidance policies: these outputs are tion from the ministry of labour/employment. The

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