Implications and recommendations for future programme development
The process of establishment of regional career guidance centres from scratch is very time consuming. In case of future projects, GOAL project team will recommend that based on the findings, the eventual coordinator of similar project probably puts more emphasis on PR activities, administration, organisational issues and development of partnerships in the pre-programme stage. Career guidance counsellors should be focused mostly on the quality of the guidance process in the future and not on these activities that have been very time consuming for them.
Within the GOAL project, GOAL project team have learnt that cooperation with labour offices is crucial because they are the most important institution having access to the target group (low skilled adults, unemployed). The cooperation should be done within the existing networks (e.g. networks of high schools etc.) and should involve schools as well in order to get access to dropouts from the secondary education. Career counsellors must have extensive knowledge about further education system (e.g. National Register of Qualifications).
The main barriers are financial. Courses – if not provided by the Labour Offices (they have certain conditions) – are generally too expensive for unemployed people. The second barrier lies in insufficient awareness about courses offered within the further education.
There are some solutions for the development, such as to provide more information about further education possibilities and better awareness about National Register of Qualification (NSK) and its use. The role of networking and cooperation with relevant stakeholders at national, regional and local level is crucial and should be developed.
