In order to ensure the acquisition of career management skills for students in general and vocational education institutions established by the state and local governments, the ESF project “Career Support in General and Vocational Education Institutions” No. 8.3.5.0/16/I/001 is being implemented in Latvia.
Each school has a career education program that is integrated into the whole school education process and it aims to discover one’s personality, make a career choice and plan it. The programme is implemented via various forms and methods – individual work, work in class and subject lessons, career events, competitions, etc.
Schools have pedagogical career advisers who help students to obtain information that is relevant to their personal, social, educational and career development, explain this information and use it properly; they provide support to parents, teachers, school management, and all institutions involved in the promotion of students' personal, social, educational and career development; they organize activities for gaining work experience in workplaces or work simulation in connection with the goals of the career education programme. These activities include gaining work experience, shadow days, jobs, training centres and university visits. The career consultants conduct individual consultations. Individual counselling plays an important role in the school's career education programme. It can be offered both individually and in a group. During individual consultations with young people, they talk about career choices, what and how to improve, how to look for a job, how to write a CV, how to evaluate yourself and prepare for a job interview.
Daugavpils Construction Technical School and other vocational education institutions offer career support also to students of general education schools by creating events within the Career Week, Open Doors Days, creating various informative materials and offering informative career classes in schools, offering individual consultations to students and parents, in order to introduce professions, work environment, career and further education opportunities.
Prepared by: Jelena Viršuta
Teacher-career consultant
Daugavpils Construction Technical School, Latvia
This is a very inspiring example, thank you very much for sharing! Often the question is raised how to distinguish between advertising the own VET centre among future students and provision of objective career guidance when working with school students. How do you go about this? Are you part of a wider cooperative approach for career guidance together with employer associations, public employment services etc. when visiting schools?
Florian, we work in career guidance in two directions:
1) promotion of VET as an initiative of education institution: students go to primary schools, VET providers invite learners from primary schools and children from kindergartens to get acquainted with professions and to try different skills in creative workshops; a certain degree of own advertisement is unavoidable and, perhaps, not necessarily unwelcome;
2) sectorial professionals and associations organize various events to promote the profession and also invite VET providers to inform what is happening in educational institutions, thus creating interest in the profession among the young person.
Practice shows that in primary school there is a person who is responsible for career support; he or she also determines the most suitable profession with tests, shows opportunities of profession and career.
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