Career development support system review – North Macedonia

The European Training Foundation (ETF) did a review of the national system for career guidance in North Macedonia in the period December 2021-May 2022.

The review involved a comprehensive mapping of the legislative, strategic, and institutional framework in the country, as well as two workshops with key stakeholders. The first workshop took place online on 3 February 2020. The second workshop was held on 11 April 2022, also online.  The key institutions with mandate in the field of career guidance took part in the workshops and contributed to the review of the national system for career guidance.

This included but was not limited to the Ministry of Education and Science (MES), the Employment Service Agency (ESA)s, the Centre for Vocational Education, the Centre for Adult Education, the Bureau for Development of Education (BDE), the Ministry of Labor and Socials Policy (MLSP).  In addition, social partners and a large number of civil society organizations (CSOs) active in the fields of education, employment, and youth, took part in the events.

The key findings and recommendation from the national review included the following:

The system is at an early stage of development and at present there is no clear idea what constitutes career guidance, in other words, which activities and services are and which are not career guidance. The development of the national system would benefit from a broader debate with active participation of key stakeholders, which would, ideally, produce clear guidelines on the issue.

At present there is no consistent terminology for career guidance work. Different laws and strategic document use different terminology, such as professional orientation, career development, and so forth. Whereas the meaning of the different terms can be inferred, there is room for inconsistent interpretation. Hence, the system development work would benefit from coordination over the key terminology.

There is no clear or common understanding on the profile and the required competencies of the career guidance professional. Some laws and strategic documents indicate to a “core role” for psychologists and pedagogues which indicates to the preponderance of the notation of career guidance as a process of psychosocial and emotional self-awareness. This seems to underestimate the importance of the labor market knowledge which is also inherent to the field.  

There is very little data on career guidance work which has actually been done and on the effects of such work. This particularly applies to the field of education where schools are only stepping up with the career guidance effort. Significant monitoring, reporting, documentation, and evaluation effort is needed in this regard.

There is no data on how job seekers find jobs, and what kind of career advice job seekers need and where they get it. More research is needed in this regard, and preferably based on longitudinal data, which could delineate some relevant trends over the midterm. Literature has been ample with the truism about the increased demand of career guidance services. This may well be true in a cross-country perspective, however in North Macedonia there is no data whatsoever what kind of career guidance people need and where they get it. There is some partial data on career guidance supply. However, there is no data what is the career guidance demand. This is an obvious area of need.

The ETF review is a significant contribution in the further development of the career guidance system in the country. The results from the review will contribute to the implementation of the EU-funded Youth Guarantee in the country, as well as the programming of the Instrument for Pre-Accession Assistance (IPA) in the next period.

The full report is available on the following link: 

https://www.etf.europa.eu/en/document-attachments/career-development-su…