Plans for think tank on career guidance

A national forum bringing together representatives from the worlds of education and work is to be set up with the aim of contributing towards the improvement of career guidance.

The main role of the National Lifelong Guidance Forum, as it will be known, is to serve as a think tank and make recommendations that will steer policy forward, said Brian Borg from Euroguidance Malta, which is spearheading the initiative. Euroguidance is an EU network with a branch in each country that provides information on training opportunities throughout Europe.

One of the tasks of the new forum will be to help create a database of the types of career available, with information on what they involve, the conditions they offer, whom to contact in the field and so on, said Mr Borg. This would be of great use to students looking at the job market or adults seeking a change in career.

The forum will be also taking part in an EU-funded project which involves six countries. Among the aims of the project is to assist in the setting up or strengthening of such forums in the participating states - UK, Denmark, Ireland, Slovenia, Estonia and Malta. The project members will also develop and issue a set of quality assurance guidelines for career guidance.

The forum's members will come from the education authorities, employers' bodies, unions, university, the vocational college and other stakeholders. A core group of government, employer and union representatives has been meeting since mid-2004 to prepare the ground for setting it up. Once the forum is up and running, Euroguidance will have the same role as the other members, said Mr Borg, the Malta Projects Officer.

"The next step now is to bring more stakeholders together to create a formal, national forum with its own statute. Many countries already have such a forum; others are in the process of setting it up. Ireland, for example, did so about three months ago. Estonia, like Malta, is about to do it."

Mr Borg said that such a forum had been recommended by Ronald Sultana in a report on the Maltese guidance system published in 2003.

In his study, which was funded by Euroguidance Malta, Prof. Sultana had found that the services offered to students and adults don't have a clear policy to steer them. Targets, measures to attain them and the monitoring of progress were "largely absent". He had argued that despite the existence of some forward-looking initiatives, clear leadership must be provided if the guidance services being offered in Malta are to come up to the standards being striven for internationally.

In another study on career guidance trends in Europe, Prof. Sultana had said the service was moving away from one aimed mostly at students and the unemployed to one provided throughout life to anyone who required it.

Asked about the state of guidance services in Malta, Mr Borg said one of the problems was that schools offered guidance that was predominantly focused on personal and social issues, rather than on career paths. "We need to provide more training in career guidance.

"We also need tools such as a national database of the training opportunities available in any given field."

Malta contributes to a database of training opportunities in Europe which is available at the Euroguidance internet portal, Ploteus. The system is about to be changed, however, and the portal is instead going to be linked to each country's central database - which in Malta has still to be created.

Euroguidance Malta also plans to carry out a study next year on providing career guidance in primary schools, which is not yet done in this country. The forum would have a contribution to make here too, Mr Borg said.

The forum was launched at a recent conference entitled Career Development and Management in a Changing Society, organised by Euroguidance Malta. The conference was attended by guidance teachers and counsellors and all the stakeholders in the field of career guidance. It tackled the challenges facing individuals, work organisations and support services in the context of the Malta National Action Plan for Employment and the key role played by lifelong guidance services.

The forum is open to all organisations which are potential stakeholders in the field of career guidance. They can ask about joining by contacting Mr Borg on 2125 5664 or by e-mail at brian.a.borg@gov.mt.