International Perspectives on Career Guidance

1. International Perspectives on Career Guidance Tony Watts

2. Policy Reviews • OECD: 14 countries • World Bank: 7 middle-income countries • ETF: 11 EU candidate countries • EC: all existing EU member-states • ETF: West Balkans; Middle East • Plus others • In total, 55 countries

3. European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network (ELGPN) • Career management skills • Access • Quality and impact evidence • Co-operation and co-ordination • Resource Kit for Policy-Makers • Focus for 2013-14: implementation at member-country level

4. All-Age Services • Strong arguments in favour: - cost-effectiveness; - enables young people to be familiarised with services they can continue to use; - avoids rigid and artificial cut-off points, in midst of prolonged transitions • Professional spine for lifelong career guidance system, working in close partnership with other providers: mix of service delivery and capacity building • Main exemplars: New Zealand; Scotland; Wales

5. National Careers Service • Designed to build on the best of Connexions and Next Step • Half-baked implementation: - Face-to-face services only for adults (NCS providers able to market face-to-face services for young people, but not as the NCS) - Telephone helplines still separate, if with same call number - Website still adult-oriented - Limited channel integration and service redesign - Limited marketing

6. Careers Provision for Young People • Move from partnership model to school-based model • Minimal statutory duty • Where external services are used, contractor-supplier relationship, within an open market • Connexions career guidance funding (£196m) not transferred to schools: effectively removed (without any public statement to this effect)

7. Systemic Weaknesses of School-Based Systems (OECD) • Weak links to labour market; tend to view subject/course choices as educational choices, without attending to their career implications • Partial: where funding is linked to student retention, tend to place institutional needs before student needs • Uneven: extent and quality of provision determined by school management priorities • Cf. strengths of partnership model

8. Move to School-Based Model • Two precedents: Netherlands; New Zealand • In both cases, resulted in significant reductions in extent and quality of careers provision • But in both cases, the previous funding for the external service was transferred to schools (if without strong ring-fencing); not the case in England • So reductions likely to be greater here

9. Netherlands • Particularly relevant to England: linked to marketisation • OECD (2002): position of Government ‘widely seen as representing not delegation but abdication’ • Previously one of the leading countries in Europe for career guidance provision: now one of the weakest

10. Ireland • School-based system: guidance counsellors covering personal/social counselling as well as career guidance • Ex-quota formula: one guidance counsellor for every 500 students • Formula now withdrawn: left to school to decide

11. Possible Future Directions • Enforce the three-pronged quality framework: - professional standards (CDI) - service standards (Matrix) - organisational standards (QiCS; IiP) • Make schools accountable

12. Possible Directions for the NCS • Resource for innovation, knowledge support (LMI) and capacity building within schools and colleges, and other organisations, alongside its distance guidance services and more limited face-to-face services (cf. New Zealand) • Extend to cover all quality-assured career development support provision, with a common brand as basis for marketing and public visibility/recognition

13. Career Support Market: Roles of Government (OECD) • Premise: career support a public good as well as a private good • To grow the market • To quality-assure the market • To compensate for market failure