Guest posting to voced-coord email list. Item 3 of 9:

Date: Thu, 2 Apr 1998 18:01:57 +1100
To: voced-coord@owl.qut.edu.au
From: Richard_Laidlaw@astf.com.au
Subject: What are you going to do when you grow up?

It would be great if my parents stopped asking me this, as I still have no idea.

Career planning is seen as an integral part of the school to work process, with vocational education and workplace learning seen as an important part of the continuum.

In the state of Wisconsin, they have developed a very comprehensive career planning service for all students, usually starting in the first year of senior high which gives them four years at school to find some possible answers to the above question.

The state government has established career centres that combine employment advice, job support and welfare for youth and adult clients across the state. Students meet with career advisors outside the schools in the multifunction centres and develop a career strategy, indicating areas of potential interest and agreeing on actions that will be taken to gain further understanding.

The counsellors from the centres must meet with students at least once a year, and the plan is renegotiated. Those students who would like greater support are offered further services, and all students can access the job inventories and career checklists via the Internet from the Careers Office at their school.

If you are interested in seeing a bit more this address leads to further info: http://www.dwd.state.wi.us/

In the UK the government tenders out the Careers Service and different organisations now offer the services to schools and the community, some of them business whose Human Resources department manages the process. They are also contracted to meet with students in schools and must meet with students and develop formal career plans which are recorded, and to which the Career Services are accountable.

In both countries, as in some of the others visited, the Careers function is seen as part of the school to work transition including activities from the primary school to post-compulsory study, with all high school education personnel having an idea of what is happening in the elementary schools and vice-versa.

Do you think that this process would work here? What are the pro's and con's??

Richard Laidlaw