Career Guidance for Workforce Development

This research project has been conducted for the European Centre for the Development of Vocational Training (CEDEFOP). The report reviews practice across the EU. Key issues emerging from the research include: how to build the capacity to deliver more effective support; the impact of new modes of delivery, such as ICT, on career development practice; the disconnect between provision inside and outside the workplace; and the increasing role played by intermediaries, such as Trade Unions, recruitment consultancies and private providers, in the provision of career development support to employed people. The report is now available from CEDEFOP.

 

Dr. Charles Jackson represented the project as a keynote speaker at CEDEFOP's conference 'Guidance for Workforce Development' in Thessaloniki in late June 2007. NICEC Fellows Dr. Wendy Hirsh , Ruth Hawthorn and Lesley Haughton were also keynote speakers at this event.

 

 

NICEC Chair Allister McGowan and Professor Tony Watts were contracted by CfBT Education Trust to conduct a survey on the new arrangements for Connexions/careers services in England. The findings of this research were disseminated at a NICEC Seminar  on 3 July 2007 in London.

 

Senior Fellow Barbara McGowan and Allister McGowan were asked by Central London Connexions to offer consultancy support for the process of re-tendering of specialist career provider contracts in the light of the structural changes from April 2008. The findings from this work were disseminated at the NICEC Seminar referred to above on 3 July 2007.

 

NICEC Senior Fellow Dr. Charles Jackson has recently completed a report for the UK GRAD Programme, based on his research to examine the employability of newly qualified PhD students. This report, 'Recruiting PhDs: What Works?', is available to download from our Publications section.

The Paul Hamlyn Foundation is funding NICEC to evaluate the career planning support available to young refugees and asylum-seekers (YRASs) in Leicester. NICEC Senior Fellows Ruth Hawthorn and Barbara McGowan will be working with staff in Leicester Shire Connexions, training YRASs to work with the research team first as researchers and then as trainers to offer training to local agencies, in order to improve the offer to this target group. This project is set to run over the next two years.

 

The UK Register of Learning Providers is a DfES 'one-stop' portal to be used by government departments, agencies, learners, and employers to share key information about learning providers. The UKRLP allows providers to update their information in only one place and share this across agencies such as, the Learning and Skills Council, the National Learning Directory, the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), the Higher Education Funding Council for England (HEFCE) and UCAS. NICEC has fulfilled the quality audit role since the inception of UKRLP. In 2007, the scope of the work was extended to include fieldwork to evaluate the procedures through which ‘super-users’ (designated within learning providers) are managing their data online.

 

The Ufi Charitable Trust is funding two projects to explore guidance provision for older adults: ‘Career management skills and the older workforce’ and ‘ICT and the over 50s: overcoming barriers to employment and training advice.’ Professor Stephen McNair, Director of the Centre for Research into the Older Workforce (CROW), will act as evaluator for both these projects.

 

The project, undertaken by NICEC Fellow Dr. Wendy Hirsh and Professor Michael Eraut at Sussex University, has synthesised existing areas of literature on skills and learning in the workplace, challenged some of the accepted arguments and policy directions in this area and suggested new issues and ways of looking at workplace learning. This review feeds into SKOPE's major programme of work around lifelong learning. The report was delivered in May and is being prepared for publication. A seminar was given in Oxford on 18th May to an invited audience of academics from a range of disciplines and people responsible for learning in employing organisations.

 

12 EU states are members and are developing examples of good practice in guidance for older adults. Most of the projects combine guidance with skill training, and are run by voluntary bodies or the equivalent. TAG is managed by the University of Glasgow.