Part I. Human Resources Development

Chapter II. Vocational guidance

137. The provisions dealing directly with vocational guidance are contained in Article 3 of Convention No. 142 and Paragraphs 7 to 14 of Recommendation No. 150. Articles 1, 2 and 5 of the Convention, and Part I (Paragraphs 1 to 3), Part II (Paragraphs 4 to 6) and Parts VI to XIV (Paragraphs 32 to 76) of the Recommendation contain common provisions concerning vocational guidance and vocational training. Government reports do not cover all the issues raised by these two standards. Six aspects inherent in vocational guidance are touched upon or outlined in detail in national analyses. These are: bodies concerned with guidance, (Endnote 1) groups targeted by guidance programmes, (Endnote 2) the scope of guidance, i.e. the subjects covered by guidance, (Endnote 3) application of the principle of participatory guidance, (Endnote 4) guidance methods (Endnote 5) and, lastly, training of persons giving vocational guidance. (Endnote 6) These aspects will be examined separately in each of the sections of this chapter. They are preceded by an introductory section containing general remarks concerning the application of the provisions. These remarks are not based on precise statements contained in national reports but are the result of comparisons made after examining all of the reports.

Section 1. General remarks

138. The reports show a considerable degree of uniformity in their definitions of the concept and general objectives of vocational guidance. With a few exceptions, such as that which wrongly equates the concept of guidance simply with the practice of selection of candidates, the contents and aims of guidance are those laid down in the ILO standards. The Committee sees this as a first indication of the influence of the 1975 standards on national practice, and even of their forerunner of 1949 (the Vocational Guidance Recommendation (No. 87)).

139. In the developing countries, vocational guidance appears to be viewed as a public service which is useful but not indispensable. Few of them have allocated the necessary means to set up a service comparable to that described by the 1975 standards. In most cases guidance is a minor appendage to the major priority objectives, education or vocational training; it is much rarer for guidance to be included in the vocational sphere, strictly speaking. In this respect, it is likely that despite their flexible wording and promotional intent, the provisions of the Convention which concern vocational guidance have been considered too remote from the practice in developing countries and have therefore been an obstacle to wider ratification. The gap between the industrialised and the developing countries which one could well imagine existed in 1949, when Recommendation No. 87 was adopted, has no doubt become even wider since. The fact that vocational guidance and information lend themselves to computerisation and processing via telecommunications has significantly contributed to a widening of the gap between practices in the industrialised and in the developing countries.

Section 2. Bodies concerned with guidance and co-ordination

140. Historically, guidance was first a matter of interest for schools and then spread to the world of work. In the vast majority of countries where it is not limited to the educational sphere, guidance is still a shared concern falling within the competence of the ministry of education and the ministry of labour. In order to avoid the risk of overlap or conflict between these two authorities, certain countries have set up inter-ministerial co-ordination structures. Thus, Spain has a General Council of Vocational Training consisting of commissions, one of which (the Vocational Guidance Commission) is specifically concerned with harmonising and co-ordinating activities in this area; at the same time, professional guidance staff (psychologists, physiologists, social workers and information officers) from both educational and professional backgrounds have set up a co-ordinating commission of professional vocational guidance staff. In 1979 the USSR established a National Co-ordinating Council for Vocational Guidance, strengthened since February 1990 by a National Vocational Guidance Centre. An Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance has been set up in Switzerland with private status but state-approved. In Finland, representatives of the Ministries of Employment and of Education are grouped together in a national Vocational Guidance Council (with councils at the regional level). A similar council has been set up in Hungary. In some cases one of the two competent ministries is made responsible for co-ordination. In Argentina and Chile, for example, this role is assigned to the respective ministry of labour. In Poland co-ordination takes place among three ministries -- those for education, labour and health, the last of which deals with the rehabilitation and retraining of disabled workers. In many cases, (Endnote 7) co-ordination also takes place at the operational level, educational and vocational guidance staff verifying and complementing their respective activities in working groups set up at different levels.

141. Co-ordination between educational guidance and vocational guidance would appear to be all the more important for certain ages (16 to 18 years), where the same population groups are addressed by guidance staff of two ministries, and because in any case vocational guidance follows on from educational guidance. The main difficulty in such co-ordination (which virtually all governments recognise as necessary) lies in the discrepancies in the length, orientation and content of the training given to staff engaged in educational and vocational guidance respectively.

Section 3. Groups targeted by guidance programmes

142. Unlike education, which is recognised in many countries as a right for everyone, guidance is only provided to certain target groups chosen by the responsible authorities as meriting particular social protection or priority treatment. When guidance is provided as part of the school curriculum by members of the permanent teaching staff, it can reach a large part of the school-going population. In Denmark, for example, which has made a special ten-year effort to increase the number of guidance staff from a few hundred to 5,000 (consisting of teachers-advisers and guidance staff of employment offices, backed up by part-time consultants), 80 per cent of school pupils benefit from guidance programmes.

143. Vocational guidance in the strict sense is in most cases defined and organised to meet the needs of particular groups. Thus, specific guidance programmes are targeted at young persons from broken families or disadvantaged minorities in Denmark and the United States; the long-term unemployed in Australia, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France, where special methods of vocational assessment and follow-up for such persons have been designed; workers in need of vocational rehabilitation following illness or an accident in Brazil; workers belonging to linguistic minorities in Canada, Norway and Sweden; and graduates of higher education in Japan.

144. In nearly all the industrialised countries, there are special guidance programmes for disabled workers. The programmes are generally accompanied by medical examinations to assess physical rehabilitation needs and canvassing in enterprises to ensure compliance with any existing provisions laying down quotas for the employment of such workers.

145. In 1990, the USSR and a number of central European countries, including Hungary and Poland, organised guidance programmes for workers affected by industrial restructuring and privatisation. Earlier, many countries (Endnote 8) designed measures to assist the redeployment of workers belonging to sectors of industry in difficulty or facing heavy cutbacks in staff numbers; in the context of such measures, guidance was an essential stage workers had to go through before beginning vocational retraining courses.

146. Since 1985, the rapid emergence of computer technology and new communications technologies in guidance has made it possible to introduce self-service and to extend vocational information programmes to a broader public.

Section 4. Scope of vocational guidance, including continuing employment information

147. In the vast majority of industrialised countries, guidance, whether educational or strictly vocational, is aimed at assisting individuals in their choice of a job. Guidance consists of two parts: an assessment of individual inclinations and aptitudes, and the provision of objective information. Objective information (also known as vocational information) covers four subjects: a description of the characteristics and contents of a given occupation, the conditions of employment involved (wages, hours of work, career, risks), the training leading to qualification for the occupation, and the market situation as regards the occupation (current shortages and surpluses, foreseeable trends in supply and demand, and location of supply and demand).

148. There are some variations in this standard outline of the contents of vocational guidance, which is still widely applied. In their efforts to help the long-term unemployed re-enter employment, Belgium and France, for example, have adapted the contents of guidance, replacing the assessment of workers' preferences and aptitudes by an evaluation of behavioural traits making them unsuitable to the discipline of a work environment, or of existing aptitudes and skills which can serve as a basis for acquiring new skills enabling them to engage in new occupations. Other industrialised countries (Endnote 9) emphasise the workers' direct participation in their own reintegration and have expanded the contents of guidance to include practical training in job-seeking methods, interview techniques, preparation of curriculum vitae, etc. A small number of developing countries, such as India and the Philippines, have decided that guidance should no longer be limited to job content or choice of occupation, but should also include assistance in setting up micro-enterprises and the promotion of self-employment. In Cyprus, the Ministry of Agriculture has contributed to adapting the contents of guidance programmes for rural use as part of a programme to promote and maintain rural employment.

149. Under the relevant instruments, the systems for vocational guidance and information on employment have to contribute to spreading information on labour law, taking account of the functions of workers' and employers' organisations. There is a fairly wide discrepancy between general practice and the standards as to information on collective agreements and labour legislation. The provision laid down in Article 3(3) of the Convention and again in Paragraph 7(3) of the Recommendation is doubtless one of their most innovative aspects, encouraging countries to supplement the traditional contents of guidance with information "on general aspects of collective agreements and of the rights and obligations of all concerned under labour law". The scarcity of information on this subject in national reports and the fairly large number of direct requests addressed to governments by the Committee following its examination of reports on the application of the Convention are a measure of how little this provision is applied. However, appreciable efforts have been made by some countries, such as Germany, where the contents of guidance, especially for young persons being trained in enterprises, include aspects of labour law, collective agreements, working conditions and trade union rights. The same is true of Austria, Denmark, Hungary, Sweden, the USSR and the United Kingdom. In a number of countries, publications and audio-visual materials on occupations contain information on this subject.

150. Generally speaking, the Committee considers that a great deal of progress remains to be made as regards the content of guidance programmes if national practice is to be brought into line with the provisions of the instruments.

Section 5. Participatory guidance

151. The concept of participatory guidance is the other innovative feature of the 1975 standards. Not only is this concept clearly formulated in the provisions referred to at the beginning of this chapter; it also colours all the provisions concerning guidance. According to these standards, guidance should not merely be a matter of occasionally one person (the pupil or worker) receiving and another (the guidance counsellor) dispensing advice; but it should also involve persons and institutions making up the family or work context in which pupils and workers find themselves and likely both to influence their choice and to help them to act accordingly. This is why a participatory approach to guidance seeks to involve teachers and parents in the case of educational guidance, and employers' and workers' organisations in the case of vocational guidance.

152. The information examined shows that educational guidance is incontestably increasingly participatory in nature. It is becoming customary in most industrialised countries to involve teachers and parents in guidance, whether because educational guidance staff themselves work full time in the national education system; (Endnote 10) because guidance sessions are entrusted to teachers of other subjects who have undergone special training in guidance techniques; (Endnote 11) because parent associations are becoming more numerous and increasingly participate in managing schools, as is the case in nearly all of the industrialised countries; or because guidance staff themselves naturally find it more realistic and effective to allow parents or guardians to attend their guidance sessions, especially where young persons with behavioural problems are concerned.

153. The participatory nature of vocational guidance is also gaining currency. Thus, the Committee refers in the first place to cases of active participation of workers' organisations in guidance in some countries (Endnote 12) where workers' representatives have negotiated restructuring plans for industries in difficulty and have been involved in guidance programmes designed to find alternative employment for workers affected by restructuring or closures of enterprises. Another example is the contribution of branch representatives of employers to guidance sessions, which consists of presenting the features and content of their professions at conferences or job fairs, or the contribution of individual employers who allow their factories to be visited by workers led by guidance staff wishing to give a very real picture of certain occupations. Yet another example is the direct participation of employers' and workers' organisations in the co-ordinating councils or commissions on vocational guidance referred to in section 2 above. In some cases, (Endnote 13) this involvement of trade union organisations in co-ordinating bodies even includes taking a firm stand against the threat of what they perceive as dangerous cutbacks in funds allocated to vocational guidance. None the less, unlike vocational training, in which employers' and workers' organisations have taken over from the public authorities by organising and financing courses, in vocational guidance there has hardly ever been any direct intervention by employers' and workers' organisations on behalf of their members, as such organisations tend to consider this function the exclusive domain of the State.

Section 6. Methods of guidance

154. As regards methods of guidance, current practice, especially in the industrialised countries, goes far beyond the 1975 standards. In this respect the standards are somewhat outdated, for since their adoption information technology, office automation and telecommunications technology have been widely introduced in vocational guidance, bringing such substantial progress that the very nature of guidance has changed. The increasing number of countries which have invested in new technologies are now pleased with the results achieved. This is no doubt the reason why some national reports deal with this question at great length.

155. In deciding to commit themselves to technological modernisation, those in charge of guidance are not merely giving in to a new fad. They see modernisation as a means of providing more precise, constantly updated information to a much larger number of people. In their view, the benefits of achieving a very wide dissemination of exhaustive information have more than compensated the sometimes very high costs of modernisation.

156. Not all countries have reached the same stage of modernisation. However, the same immediate effects of computer technology are visible wherever it is used: as well as making it easier to store, retrieve and update information, it has brought improvement, diversification and better mastery of typographic techniques, easier illustration of texts using photographs, graphs or tables, and autonomy and flexibility in reproducing and printing polychrome materials. The traditional written documentation can thus be presented in a more attractive form, enhancing the quality and effectiveness of the message. Video cameras and cassettes have increasingly, and at lower cost, supplemented written documentation presenting the contents and characteristic features of occupations.

157. Computer technology is used in combination with the "telematics" system in the application of software giving applicants direct access to information on occupations and training (i.e. without going through guidance counsellors or information officers). Initially introduced in Canada and the United States, this system, which allows exploration, on a self-service basis, of all the possible variables inherent in occupations (i.e. their contents and all the information relating to the exercise of occupations, such as skills, previous training required, career, remuneration) has already been introduced in Australia, Germany, Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands and Sweden and will soon be extended to many other countries. In Austria Australia, Germany and Japan, a network of vocational information multi-media centres has gradually been set up to enable any interested member of the public to gain access to information on occupations, which is available both in the form of traditional written documentation and in more modern forms such as video cassettes, sound-slide packages, or computer terminals.

158. The use of tests has also been made easier and become more widespread with the introduction of computer technology. Research and experiments in the United States, for example, have made it possible to design software which questions the worker or pupil being tested, records the replies given to the computer and automatically calculates their score at the end of the test. Widespread computerisation of tests may, however, mean that it is more difficult and costly to translate and adapt them to the cultural conditions of the countries and regions concerned. The Committee notes the appreciable effort made by certain countries, such as Brazil, Israel, Pakistan and Tunisia, to design or adopt tests corresponding to their country's occupational and cultural features. In this respect the practice in these countries seems to be in full conformity with that laid down in Paragraph 14(1) of the Recommendation. Moreover, the Committee, which has no information in this respect, recalls the provision of paragraph 13(2) and (3), under which test or examination results should not be communicated or used without the knowledge or consent of the worker seeking guidance.

159. The modernisation of guidance methods is not restricted to technological innovation. Other methods, which the 1975 standards either only touched on or overlooked altogether, are now emerging and spreading. Thus, in countries such as the USSR, the practice of, or developments in, an occupation may be the subject of televised debates between speakers from different backgrounds as in a programme for educational purposes. In other countries such as Belgium, Cyprus, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and the United Kingdom, guidance sessions have given way to the widespread use of vocational guidance courses which take place in life-size simulated workshops where young persons and workers, before making their final choice of an occupation, spend up to two weeks trying out different jobs in a real-life situation in order to test their preferences and aptitudes on the job. Where such courses do not exist, in many countries organised visits to enterprises provide a realistic picture of how jobs are performed.

160. Initially introduced in the United States and Canada, another method of guidance has gradually spread to most West European countries: job fairs, like trade fairs, usually consist of stands set up in an exhibition hall for three to five days. Each stand is staffed and organised so as to illustrate the conditions in which a trade or group of trades is practised (using lectures, interviews, video films, documentation, or computer terminals, or showing workers in the workplace, together with their tools or machines).

Section 7. Training of guidance staff

161. The study of governments' reports reveals three outstanding features as regards the training of guidance staff. The first is the increasing diversification of the specialisations which go into guidance. Contrary to the belief which still prevailed when the standards were adopted, guidance is no longer the sole preserve of psychologists. An increasing number of guidance staff, especially in the industrialised countries where the profession is most highly developed, are teaching specialists, physiologists, social workers, computer scientists and communications technicians who lead the teams in charge of guidance programmes. The multidisciplinarity which is now characteristic of the duties of guidance staff means that there is a proliferation of training centres in which the team members are trained. As the profession evolves, the concept of a guidance school as the sole source of specialists in the profession, which for a long time seemed to be a prevalent concept in different countries, is now gradually disappearing.

162. The second outstanding feature as regards training, a direct result of the first, is the increasingly high level of basic training required of guidance specialists. Unlike other labour market professionals, such as those responsible for placement, manpower needs assessment and enterprise counselling, guidance counsellors cannot be trained on the job or given in-house training to supplement a pre-university education. Several developing countries, such as Egypt, require candidates for guidance posts to hold a university degree, preferably in psychology, supplemented by special training in interview techniques. In Czechoslovakia, educational guidance counsellors are required to have completed a special two-year training course after graduating from university. In Sweden guidance counsellors must hold a degree awarded after three years of university studies, supplemented by three years' work experience, in addition to in-house training. In Denmark guidance officers must hold a teaching degree and have received 400 hours' special additional training. Australia requires eight years' professional experience before admitting candidates for guidance counsellors to in-house training at post-graduate level. In Portugal, professional guidance counsellors must hold a university degree in psychology or teaching before receiving additional training dispensed by the Employment and Vocational Training Institute (IEFP). In the United Kingdom (Hong Kong) teachers whose duties include giving guidance to pupils are required to have completed a one-and-a-half-year part-time training course jointly organised by the Ministries of Labour and Education and the university. The USSR is currently setting up a school dispensing training in all labour management occupations, requiring guidance counsellors in training to hold a university degree. These higher basic training requirements ensure the quality and enhance the effectiveness of counselling, but reinforce its image as a costly profession and discourage many developing countries from introducing or developing it. In order to reduce the cost of training, some countries, such as France and Germany, have decided to split counselling duties into two sub-specialisations: one focusing on the psychological assessment of applicants or the interpretation of tests, which is the responsibility of highly trained psychologists, the other centring on the organisation and dissemination of objective information on occupations or the labour market by information officers who do not need to hold a university degree and whose in-house training is more rapid.

163. The third outstanding feature of guidance counsellors is the gradual convergence and increasing complementarity of centres dispensing educational guidance training and those offering vocational guidance training. The higher requirements as regards basic qualifications mean that universities are becoming a common source of training for educational and vocational guidance posts. Moreover, the realisation that guidance is a combination of two inseparable components -- knowledge of the individual's psychological make-up on the one hand, and knowledge of occupations and the employment market on the other -- is leading to collaboration and a greater degree of exchange between sources of training traditionally intended for educational guidance and those intended for vocational guidance.

Endnotes

Endnote 2

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Endnote 6

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Endnote 8

Endnote 9

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Endnote 11

Endnote 12

Endnote 13

Cross references
Constitution: Article 19
Constitution: Article 22
Constitution: Article 35
Recommendations:R087 Vocational Guidance Recommendation, 1949