The Inter-Agency Working Group on Career Guidance
This booklet is the second edition of the first booklet on the importance of investing in career
guidance published six international organisations. Members of the Inter-Agency Working Group on Career Guidance (WGCG) published this booklet to reflect the fact that the need for guidance
had increased sharply with people staying in education and training longer and pressure growing on people to upskill and reskill.
Summary
Effective career guidance support individuals to reach their potential, economies to become more efficient and societies to become fairer. It is critical to the smooth transitions of young people and adults as they make choices about education, training and mobility within the labour market. Today’s labour market is still more turbulent as Covid-19 has deeply disrupted demand for workers and accelerated patterns of automation and digital transformation that are radically changing the character of work and increasing risks of joblessness and precarious employment. What’s more, globalisation, demographic trends and growing efforts to create greener economies are changing the character of demand for skills in labour markets around the world. Effective career guidance has an essential part to play in recovery plans and in helping people of all ages and backgrounds to navigate such disruption.
Key evidence
Despite access to guidance in many country is insufficient, particularly for
those who are in greatest need , this booklet provides country based evidence to support effective career guidance and to give policy makers confidence that investment in guidance can be expected to provide positive economic, educational and social returns to both individuals and society.
- To achieve these generic hallmarks of an effective and efficient career guidance system, a national vision and strategy should be developed collaboratively between responsible government bodies, in areas such as education, training, social protection and employment, together with social partners and other civil society organisations.
- Effective career guidance helps individuals to reach their potential, economies to increase their efficiency and societies to become fairer. It provides people with personalised, impartial and timely information and support to make meaningful decisions about their lives.
- In responding to individual, family and community needs, offering a professional service via a diversity of channels to increase accessibility, including self-help platforms and tools, face-to face, online and phone services.
- Employer engagement enriches career guidance. When people in work cooperate with schools and other providers, better understanding can be expected of the working world in all its varieties.
- Effective employer engagement is authentic, frequent, personalised, varied, embedded in careers education and begun in primary school
- Career guidance relies on high quality information to raise the awareness of adults about skills in demand and enable career guidance advisors to offer timely advice about the labour market.