New education programme to support the career development of secondary school students in Greece
Author: Dimitrios Gaitanis, Head of the Career Guidance Directorate, Manager of National Euroguidance and Europass Centers, National Organization for the Certification of Qualifications and Career Guidance (EOPPEP).
Providing career education has been recognised as one of the five main roles of a career guidance counsellor, according to the Network for Innovation in Career Guidance and Counselling in Europe (NICE). Several European studies have invited member countries to support the teaching and acquisition of Career Management Skills (CMS) in formal education and training as either á specialised education programme or as cross curricular competencies.
For Secondary schools, a carefully designed career education programme is a way to pursue quality in career guidance services. In Greece the Ministry of Education published a circular for school teachers to develop and coordinate such career education programmes that take place outside the curriculum. The circular describes the thematic sectors of this new programme but does not include quality and outcome criteria and detailed desirable learning outcomes, which causes a lot of differentiation among programs.
A guide for designing and evaluating career education programmes in schools
To support the Ministry with the planning, monitoring and evaluation of career education programmes, EOPPEP (the National Organisation for the Certification of Qualifications and Career Guidance) has developed a guide; a standardised Career Education Programme. This guide was developed in 2023 under the Erasmus 2021-2023 grant. The guide sets the quality standards for the evaluation of career education programmes by proposing for example learning outcomes, indicators, teaching methodologies and exercises for the students.
The guide takes the form of a textbook which includes both theory and exercises. The theory is structured in five main areas of career education:
- self-awareness - self-perception
- provision of career information
- decision making
- management of transitions
- career management skills
The guide helps school teachers to develop programmes in which students learn to master these five competence areas with the help of theory and exercises. These competencies are closely connected with the National Framework of Life/Career competencies and the digital tool EOPPEP made for students to evaluate competencies. An example is found via this link.
The guide has already been successfully implemented in schools by both teachers and Career Counsellors all over Greece. The guide is available in Greek via this link. A summary of the guide can be found here.
