Presentation by Raimo Vuorinen at a NVL seminar on Career Guidance, Faroe Island, May 2017

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“Coherent Guidance Services as a Joint Effort”
Hvussu skipa vit eina heildarvegleiðing í smásamfeløgum
og útjaðaraøkjum, her við serligum fokus
á Føroyar, Grønland og Áland?
Raimo Vuorinen, Ph.D.
Project Manager, Professor
Finnish Institute for Educational Research, University of Jyväskylä, Finland
”Vegleiðing – nær og fjar”
Torshavn
30 May 2017

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Online foorum for comments:
https://padlet.com/esterp77/vegleidingnarogfjar

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Discussion themes
■ Definitions – what is guidance and career
education?
■ Beneficiaries and impact
■ Understanding the context
■ Strategic leadership and co-ordination
– Lessons learned from international practices and policies
■ Next steps…

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Career Guidance
Career guidance refers to services and activities
intended to assist individuals, of any age and at any
point throughout their lives, to make educational,
training and occupational choices and to manage their
careers…
The activities may take place on an individual or group
basis, and may be face-to-face or at a distance
(including help lines and web-based services).
(OECD, 2004)

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Career education:
– A range of structured programmes and activities
which help students to link their learning to the
acquisition of lifelong Career Management Skills
and employability skills.
Career Management Skills (CMS):
– Acquisition of competences that enable citizens
at any age or state of development to manage
their learning and work life paths.

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Rationale…
(McCarthy 2016)
■ Career guidance: a public good as well as a private good; a
‘public service of general interest’
■ International recognition of public interest value: European
Social Charter; ILO Recommendations on HRD; EU Council
and Parliament Resolutions; international policy reviews of
OECD, WB, ETF, CEDEFOP
■ A specialised knowledge area and a specialised teaching and
learning activity within education, training, employment and
social inclusion policy areas
■ A policy instrument for the achievement of educational,
employment, social and economic goals for individuals,
groups and society

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What is a policy?
■ A course of action proposed and/or adopted
by an organisation, group, government
■ A policy can take many forms:
– a statement of intent
– a set of objectives
– a statement/plan of action
– a national strategy
– a law or decree
– a set of values and/or guiding principles
– some or all of the above in combination.

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Policy:
A national and regional responsibility
■ National authorities (and in certain countries regions or
states or provinces) have responsibility for education,
training, employment and social policies and their
funding.
■ Also applies to responsibility for their choice and use
of policy instruments such as career guidance and
counselling provision and its organisation/delivery, and
taking into account the specifics (e.g. demographic,
social, administrative, economic, geographical) of
each country and region.

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Who are the stakeholders in policy
development?
(McCarthy 2016)
1. The general public or groups of the public for whom a policy
is designed are the major stakeholders ….rarely if ever
consulted during the development phase, and are only
sometimes consulted in the policy implementation evaluation.
2. The structures, organisations, and professionals involved in
policy implementation …..more likely to be consulted in both
the policy development and implementation phases.
3. The most powerful stakeholders: the government and
administrative structures who act as stakeholders on behalf
of the taxpayers ….are as they provide the funding for policy
development and implementation.
■ Policy lobby groups (2 above and maybe 1 above)

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Stakeholder characteristics:
language and competing interests
(McCarthy 2016)
■ Different stakeholders use different language terms to
describe their interests e.g. the public talk about information
and advice; the professionals talk about narrative approaches
and counselling; and the governments talks about inputs,
outputs and outcomes.
■ Sometimes when they talk about a similar concept e.g. quality
assurance, each of the stakeholders have completely different
meanings and interpretations.
■ Stakeholders will always have competing interests. It is in the
nature of power and cannot be avoided.
■ The competing interests can give rise to diktats,
defensiveness, negativity, alienation, creativity, harmony, and
communities of interests. There will always be some tension.

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Learning
Outcomes
Economic
Outcomes
Social
Outcomes
Individual
Organisation
Community
Country
Types of
Beneficiariesof
impact
Career Education and Guidance:
Types of impact and beneficiaries of impact
(ELGPN 2015, Hooley 2014, Borbely-Pecze 2011, Nykänen ym.
2007)
Sector, e.g.
schools, VET
TVET, employed

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Economic benefits (Hooley 2017)
Career guidance
- A range of interventions
Individual outcomes
- Human capital
- Social capital
- Supported transitions
Primary economic
outcomes
- Increased labour market
participation
- Decreased unemployment
- Enhanced skills and
knowledge base
- Flexible and mobile labour
market
Secondary economic
outcomes
- Improved health
- Decreased crime
- Increased tax revenue
- Decreased benefit costs
Macro-economic benefits
- Deficit reduction
- Productivity
- Living standards
- Economic growth

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Practice & policy development
Strategic leadership?

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User perspective Staff perspectives
Organisational perspective
Regional/National
perspective
Perspectives
for networked
services
Skills, competences
Challenges related to
multiprofessionalism:
crossing the boundaries,
transitions
Well-being
Strategy work
Joint planning
Co-ordination
Jointly agreed goals
Planning
Decision-making
Division of responsibilities
Division of labour
Shared leadership
Access
Engagement
Transition learning
Different perspectives for the networked services ( Nykänen ym.2007; Tenhula 2007)

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Strategic leadership of LLG (ELGPN 2015)
■ Strategic leadership refers to how policy and systems
development for lifelong guidance are managed in a
country, region, and locality. In particular it refers to co-
operation and co-ordination mechanisms that
implicate all of the relevant stakeholders in policy and
systems development.
■ Key variables in planning and organisation of lifelong
guidance provision include:
– policy and administrative responsibility (ministry);
– knowledge sharing between ministries;
– centralised v. decentralised government responsibility (region,
municipality, institution);
– stakeholder involvement;
– inclusive policy frameworks such as human resource
development, lifelong learning, and employability, which are a
shared responsibility of several ministries.

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Questions for consideration when
implementing coherent guidance provision
■ Distinction between three level of linkages
– Communication
• Exchanging informaton, exploring potentials
for co-operation
– Co-operation
• Between partners, within existing structures,
decision powers and mandates retained by
each partner
– Co-ordination
• Requires a co-ordinating structure with
operational mandates and funding (contract
or legal mandate)

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LLG forums: roles and functions (Cedefop 2008)
■ dialogue: a platform where actors and stakeholders
meet to discuss and exchange information and
viewpoints, mainly to create common understanding
and voluntary coordination of activities;
■ consultation: a body set up primarily to act as a
reactive sounding board for government initiatives and
policies; , e.g. Youth Guarantee
■ policy development: a proactive forum to promote the
concept of lifelong guidance through concrete policy
proposals and initiatives;
■ systems development: a place for developing
concrete, practically-oriented issues in the framework of
lifelong guidance (quality assurance frameworks, or
training provision).

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Questions for consideration when
implementing coherent guidance provision (2)
■ Potential advantages of top-down approaches
– Funding base
– Direct link with policy
■ Potential advantages of bottom-up approaches
– May be more sustainable
– More independence in actions
– May produce a greater sense of ownership and
motivated participation

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Questions for consideration when
implementing coherent guidance provision (3)
■ Integrative potentials of the ICT
– Bringing together the stake holders
– A tool and a powerful agent of change
– Data collection and dissemination
– System integration

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Levels of co-operation
and co-ordination?
Which would be relevant and
feasible in self-governing regions?

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Statutory council/legal entity
■ Establishment by an act, which sets its
powers
■ Advantages:
– Relatively high degree of permanence
■ Limitations
– The potential range of tasks depens on the remit
and funding it is given
■ EOPEPP (Greece)

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Government-initatiated body
■ A working group or other body
■ Goal: to solve specific tasks or to prepare more
permanent solutions
■ Advantages:
– Some legitimacy with relevant ministries
– Access to resources to carry out this work
■ Limitations
– Due to proximity to government – barred from
independency
■ Finland, Norway

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Voluntary association
■ May consist of factions grouped around specific
stakeholders
■ Advantages
– Independent from the government
– Free to provide independent opinions on its policies
– Independent initiatives
■ Limitations
– Legitimacy and effectiveness depend on its success to
attract key stakeholders in guidance
– It has to raise its own funding from a number of sources
■ National Forum for Guidance in Education, Career
and Employment in Germany

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Experimental/Project-based body
■ A project under national or transnational programmes
■ Advantages
– Possibility to test different models of co-ordination and co-
operation
– Possibility to conduct feasibility studies
■ Limitations
– Temporary solutions
– Need for a more formal structures
■ Establishment of a national steering group as a lead into
developing a national guidance policy forum in Estonia
■ An ”initiative group” for establishing a national guidance policy
forum in Slovenia

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Regional forums
■ Regional support mechanisms, set up to prepare or
co-ordinate regional implementation of lifelong
guidance policies
– Regional forums in Finland and in Denmark
■ Regional forums in countries with devolved
government where regions have autonomy in
matters of guidance, comparable to national forums
– Regional forums in Scotland
• Improving dialogue with the government
• Providng a focal point for professional guidance matters
• Improving a channel for regional and international communication in
guidance
■ Regional forums in AT, BE, DE, EE, LU, RO, SE

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Membership
■ Core ministries with responsibilities and powers
over guidance services and key stakeholders, e.g.
– employers and trade unions,
– education and training institutions,
– various organisations in education and training (school principals’
organisations, adult education organisations),
– public employment services,
– user representatives (parents’ organisations, student unions, etc.),
– national consumers associations,
– associations of guidance professionals,
– representatives of universities/colleges responsible for training guidance
counsellors,
– local government representatives,
– Euroguidance representatives.
■ Experts and researchers

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Resourcing
■ What is needed:
– Funding
– Secretarial support
– Infrastructure (housing, furniture, etc.)
– The time of members
■ Options for resources:
– Governmental working groups
– Membership basis with fees
– Work based on grants
– Project funding for specific tasks
– Revenue-generating activities – potential parallel competitions
with others in the national guidance community
– Work under EU programmes (especially in regional level)

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Other issues for consideration
■ Steering and day-to-day co-ordination
– Chairperson is often from ministries or national agencies
– Executive committee and subcommittee
– Sectretariat
■ Decision-making processes
– Dialogue
– Consultation
■ Communication channels
– General assembly, activity reports, newsletters, websites,
online working spaces, articles in journals, career fairs,

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Key elements of leadership in guidance networks
Nykänen, S. (2010) Towards leadership and management in guidance and counselling networks in
Finland
https://ktl.jyu.fi/julkaisut/julkaisuluettelo/julkaisut/2011/d096

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To what extent these could be possible in
self-governing regions in the Faroes, Greenland
and in Åland Islands?
What actions should be taken?
■ A cross-sectoral national representative structure
which supports LLG policy and systems coherence
within and across sectors?
■ Co-operation among national LLG forums with
support for peer learning and exchanges for policy
sharing and learning, including through thematic
conferences and thematic clusters
■ https://padlet.com/esterp77/vegleidingnarogfjar

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Conclusions…
■ A national cross-sectoral forum can promote high
political visibility to lifelong guidance in regional,
national policies for education, training,
employment and social inclusion

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ELGPN Products http://elgpn.eu/publications
ELGPN Toolbox:
- LLG Policy Development, European Resource Kit for Policy Makers
- Glossary
- Evidence Guide
- Career Management Skills
- Quality and Evidence
- Guidelines for Policies and Systems Development for LLG
ELGPN Progress reports 2008-15
Concept Notes
Research Paper
Policy Briefings

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Thank you!
For further information, please contact:
Raimo Vuorinen, Senior researcher, Ph.D.
Finnish Institute for Educational Research
P.O. Box 35
FI-40014 University of Jyväskylä
tel. +358-50-3611909
Fax +358-14-617418
email: raimo.vuorinen@jyu.fi
Skype: vuorai
LinkedIn: https://fi.linkedin.com/in/raimovuorinen