This Thematic Action addresses the recommendations of the Council Resolutions on Lifelong Guidance (2004, 2008) on the development of quality-assurance systems for guidance services and products from a user perspective and on the need for an evidence base for developing policies for guidance provision and resources.
It builds on the previous Cedefop studies of indicators and benchmarks in career guidance at European level and of quality-assurance systems for guidance, on the Cedefop peer learning activity in the fields of QA systems and indicators held in 2004/05, on the EU common reference points for such systems, and on the recommendations based on these studies produced by the European Commission’s Lifelong Guidance Expert Group. It builds also on the existing national initiatives on quality-assurance systems, as well as on evidence-based practice and policy development in ELGPN member countries.
A long-term objective for this Thematic Action is to further elaborate the meta-criteria for quality assurance included in the EU common reference tools on lifelong guidance. The aim is to develop a proposal for a common EU framework for quality assurance from a lifelong guidance perspective. The activity aims to identify the existing evidence of guidance outcomes as a part of the quality discussion. A long-term goal is to establish a link between indicators for lifelong guidance provision and the EU indicators on education and training systems.
The Thematic Action promotes the development of an EU framework for appropriate evidence-collection systems for lifelong guidance: for example, by embedding them in already existing surveys, preferably on a cross-sectoral basis. The work covers the areas identified as needing improvement in the recent international career guidance policy reviews (notably: financial and human resources allocated to career guidance; citizen need and demand; the characteristics of users; guidance process; user satisfaction; and the outcomes and cost-effectiveness of career guidance).
Lead participants: Denmark, contact person: Steffen Jensen; Finland, contact person: Raimo Vuorinen
Participating countries & Partner organisations: DE, DK, EE, EL, FI, HU, LU, LV, PT, UK, Cedefop
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