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Section 4: Evaluation

The national definitions of different activities reflect Some countries indicate that, because they are at a
the different cultures, institutional contexts, delivery relatively early stage in developing national guidance
modes and competence profiles of career practitio- systems, they feel they have learned more in ELGPN
ners. Since the participating countries are at different than they have felt able to contribute. However, some
stages of policy development and have distinctive of the issues they have raised have helped to shape
issues to address, it is at times difficult to agree pro- the discussions of the ELGPN in fruitful ways. Such
posals that meet the needs of all ELGPN members. countries tend to want ELGPN to have a stronger
Sometimes the tensions between government depart- policy role than do countries with a longer history of
ments or the level of decentralisation place restric- guidance policy development. They would like more
tions upon the effective implementation of coherent support from ELGPN for their national initiatives.
national lifelong guidance policies. In addition to For other countries, this kind of active role, e.g. defin-
the EU level of guidance policy development, there is ing minimum levels for quality standards, might be
emerging interest in some countries to develop cross- viewed as challenging their autonomy in national
border clusters with similar interests. lifelong guidance policy development.
The inputs from ELGPN member countries to
the Network activities vary. The contributions of
each country to the 2011–12 activities are presented 4.7 Conclusions
in Annex 2. The levels of acceptance of ELGPN
at national level and the levels of involvement in The key strength of ELGPN continues to be the strong
ELGPN activities are linked to the composition ownership of its activities expressed by the national
of the national delegation and the workloads of delegations. It has built its infrastructure and has
national representatives, as well as the current phase identified targets for lifelong guidance policy devel-
of national developments. Where the composition opment. The third phase of its life (2011–12) has
of the national team changes, this can limit opportu- been devoted to the development of concrete tools to
nities to contribute effectively to Network activities, help EU member-states and other participating coun-
especially where no briefing takes place as part of a tries to promote better-informed and more effective
managed handover. policies related to lifelong guidance. According to
the members’ evaluation responses, these goals have
been largely met.

Evaluation

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