Section 6 - Vocational and Career Guidance

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Regional Strategy for Technical and Vocational Education and Training

Caribbean Community Secretariat Competency - based Curriculum Design
TVET Council, Barbados - Ministry of Labour and Social Security,
Barbados, 19 to 23 November 2001

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Section 6 Vocational and Career Guidance

Major Action: Organise professional vocational and career guidance services

On the whole, organised and systematic vocational guidance and career counselling services in educational institutions in the Region are either non-existent or are severely limited. In the majority of schools, guidance and advice are given on an ad hoc informal basis by subject teachers who usually have no special training for this task. At the same time, in the few schools in which guidance counsellors are available, they tend to focus on helping students overcome behavioral, family or social problems rather than advising them on their future careers.

CARICOM Survey PP. 100-101

Rationale

Vocational and career guidance is also an essential consideration in the promotion of TVET. Therefore within any National Training System, there should be well organized procedures for the provision of guidance. The guidance officers will need to provide information and advice about careers and deal with concerns such as those of gender bias, opportunities for handicapped persons and motivation and self-concept of candidates for TVET.

Vocational and career guidance closely linked to the Labor Market Information System is essential for the success of TVET initiatives in Member States. Guidance officers will need to use Labor Market information to advise about types of jobs available, skills needed, career paths, salary scales and trends and opportunities for professional growth. The use of the Dictionary of Occupations will be necessary in cross-referencing and advising about additional training that may be required for transferring from one occupation to another.

Vocational and career guidance services could be co-ordinated by the National Training Agency. A corps of trained persons will be created to work as a guidance unit, located in the Ministry of Education or other appropriate department or institution, and put at the disposal of the entire education system. This will obviate the need for having such officers located in every relevant education or training location and improve the likelihood of having adequately trained persons to perform these services. The size of the corps will depend on the scale of individual territories.

There is an absence at well developed and organized guidance programmes, in schools and a lack of appropiate and well informed and sensitive vocational and career counselling in most schools. Moreover, in schools where this service is provided , the majority of counsellors appear to be virtually unaware of their own gender biases and prejudices and of the negative effects and far-reaching consequences that these have on the students with whom they interact, and to whom they give counsel. In addition, the advice offered to students about subject choices often bears little relationship to the realities of the changing needs and demands of the labor market. As a result, there is often a glaring mismatch between students abilities, interests and career opportunities and their employment possibilities on completion of training.

Furthermore, this mismatch appears to be much greater for female students who continue to be shunted into sewing and cooking classes rather tan into more technical skilled area.

Both male and female students who enter into non- traditional areas of training, experience a significant amount of pressure from their peers.

CARICOM Survey P.97

The Inter-American Centre for Knowledge Development in Vocational Training (ILO/Cinterfor)
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