Guidance activities and processes

Guidance activities and processes: quantitative findings 

If talking about all various reasons for seeking the guidance, the most frequently mentioned reason is exploring educational opportunities, which also results in fact, that most of the clients within this target group are early school leavers, so they are rather low educated without the qualifications that are demanded by the employers on the labour market.  

Guidance sessions were typically relatively long: on average, a session took almost an hour. If taking into account time difference between the waves, sessions within Wave 1 were longer (about 6 minutes on average), which might be also caused by the fact, that within Wave 1 was the sample of clients relatively small and so the clients were given more time and space – within Wave 2 the session also took place in the form of focus groups, which didn´t happen within Wave 1. 

Most of the clients were referred by local labour offices. From the results and comparison of the phases within the survey, it is apparent that for example the communication and cooperation with labour offices was boosted. Also share of clients who came voluntarily increased across the waves, which may indicate increased knowledge about the GOAL project and its activities. 

Guidance activities and processes: qualitative findings  

According to qualitative data obtained both from staff members, policy actors and partners, the key issue in the Czech Republic is the need for a systematic guidance approach at the national level. The GOAL project is in accordance with the Strategy for Development of Educational Policy in the Czech Republic 2020. By serving as a pilot activity, GOAL has the potential to play an important role in the development of such an approach. However, there is a clear need to determine which institution(s) will be responsible for GOAL (or GOAL-like) services, and to broaden awareness of GOAL to the general public, for example through promotional activities, tools and campaigns.   

Regarding the philosophy of this service, all stakeholders consider the target group to be very vulnerable in the labour market with few chances to obtain some kind of decent standard of living. There are however positive outcomes from the service as stated in the case studies. 

In the Czech Republic context, there is nothing like typical guidance session, because each client requires an individual and different approach. However, there is a common methodology focused on identification of client´s needs through a mix of coaching methods and semi-structured interview techniques. It is also important to point out that client is an active partner in the whole counselling

process. The condition of effective cooperation is that client receives career guidance on a voluntary basis and he/she is introduced to the scope and form of such a guidance service.