Lifelong Guidance Systems Development - Views of Career Experts
QUALITATIVE APPROACH
The International Centre for Career Development and Public Policy 161 B Avenue Sainte Marguerite, 06200 Nice, France Director Dr. John McCarthy | [email protected]
The International Centre for Career Development and Public Policy, an international non-profit organisation, collects, publishes and disseminates career guidance policy and systems information internationally to help countries and regions/states/provinces to make better policies and strategies for career guidance for their citizens.
ICCDPP supports the organizing and hosting of international symposia on career development and public policy. See SYMPOSIA on the homepage drop-down menu of www.iccdpp.org for the agenda, inputs and outputs of the symposia held since 1999. It also undertakes the international and national follow-up of the recommendations of these symposia.
This article describes a qualitative study of the experiences, understandings, and conceptions of lifelong guidance systems of a sample of career experts based in different work settings, and mainly in European countries. It aims to elucidate how such systems develop and to identify features of effective systems and of their future development. The outcome is a four-fold category of lifelong guidance systems: minimal, aspirational, strategic, and systemic.
The article is a welcome introduction to the world of systems development as it applies to lifelong guidance, a very under-researched area of career guidance delivery. As the authors point out, lifelong guidance systems are mainly conceptualisations in a context where the reality is a disparate collection of subsystems, each with their own aims, objectives, and intended outcomes. A mapping of the latter in any country, and the role of career guidance within each, may provide more concrete insights how to better integrate such subsystems in a lifelong guidance framework, and lead to more conceptual and concrete coherence.
Wishing courage, safety, freedom, self-determination, and independence to the people of Ukraine and all of its territory
John McCarthy, Director, ICCDPP 30 April 2023
Sharing developments and progress in our field benefits everyone
ICCDPP wishes to acknowledge the support of the Ministry of Children and Education, Denmark, and the Canadian Career Development Foundation