I had an exciting opportunity to prepare Factsheet on career guidance and counselling in Serbia. This assignment was even more interesting as it came at a special point in time – the transition from one decade to the other, transition from “normality” into “new normality”. But this year, like every other, also brought some regular transitions: from one education level to another, from education to labour market, from employment to unemployment, and vice versa.
I realized that throughout the process of exploring strategic documents, interviewing key stakeholders about their projects, initiatives, and reform objectives in the field of career guidance and counselling, some new questions emerged, different from those I primarily focused on.
I was determined to find out what are the institutional, organizational, and individual capacities for career guidance and counselling. What kind of career guidance culture dominates the policy and practice of career guidance. What inhibits the career management skills concept from becoming the leading paradigm of the current reforms in the field. To what extent did the newly introduced standards for career guidance services influenced the improvements in quality assurance, coordination among the sectors, career management skills development, and professionalization of career guidance practitioners.
However, working on the answers to these questions triggered some others. What is the level of the national career guidance and counselling system`s resilience and is it capable to support all those transitions, expected as well as the unexpected? Will the current level of adaptability allow for the necessary digital leap to happen and assure access to all those in need of support? Like every good journey, this one also provided the perspective for new destinations.
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Dear Jelena, thank you very much! For me you are touching upon one of the most critical aspects of any type of system - continuous improvement and development. If we keep reflecting upon career guidance and counselling systems' readiness to deliver on expected outcomes and the level of capacity at institutional, organisational and individual level to do so, we can contribute a lot to making systems effective. Thanks for your great analysis and work!
Dear Jelena, Thank you very much for these reflections. We in ETF are so lucky to co-work with experts/colleagues like you and others.. Your work on the Serbia Fiche is highly appreciated by all. I hope all the collective knowledge and analysis captured by the ETF team and you all experts from the WB and Turkey( in this case), will be used also for the " Regional Challenge Fund in Western Balkans 6". Career guidance is crucial for young people not only for education and training but also for finding their path/way toward the employment. We are looking forward to cooperate with you all under this regional and multi annual project too! Warm greetings Lida
Thank you Florian, thank you Lida! I sincerely believe that the analysis like this can support further development of the system. I also fully agree with you Lida, career guidance is of great importance for young people involved in cooperative vocational education training programs. They need to build their career management skills to be able to recognise career prospects and balance learning and working in order to reach personal and professional success. Vocational training institutions should recognize the importance of career guidance services.
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