Professional development for teachers

The purpose and role of career education

To understand the important role that career education plays in New Zealand schools, we need to establish the focus of career education in the context of 21st Century economy and society.

The central question is: what kind of skills, knowledge and attitudes do students need in order to develop their career throughout their lives?

What do we mean by career development and career education?

: Competencies developed in high school will help students throughout their careers

The career development questions that matter for young people are:

Where do I want to start?
What foundation do I need?
Who do I want to become?

Recognising this broad definition of career development, career education becomes more than job picking and transition planning.

A much broader set of competencies is required, so that students can face the many career challenges and opportunities that will arise during their lives. This is also known as career resilience.

"The new career management paradigm is not about making the right occupational choice. It’s about equipping people with the competencies (skills, knowledge and attitudes) to make the myriad of choices with which adults are confronted continuously, in all aspects of their adult lives, lifelong."

Phil Jarvis, 'Food for Thought' for Working Connection.

Teaching career management competencies

The New Zealand Curriculum (2007) states that young people need the ability to be:

confident
connected
actively involved
lifelong learners.

This vision of the New Zealand Curriculum, with its emphasis on competencies, represents a new paradigm in education. This paradigm also applies to career education.

The career management competencies

The career management competencies are outlined more fully in Career Education and Guidance in New Zealand Schools (2009). In summary, the competencies that enable the development of career resilience and successful career development are:

developing self-awareness – enabling young people to understand themselves and the influences on them
exploring opportunities – enabling young people to investigate opportunities in learning and work
deciding and acting – enabling young people to make and adjust their plans to manage change and transition, and take appropriate action.

These competencies are based on comparative work done in Australia, Canada, the United States and England, which have adopted a similar set of aims and outcomes for career education. More details can be found at Australian Blueprint for Career Development (2005).

Towards a coherent framework for career education

: A career education plan brings a school's programmes together into a coherent framework

How career education is conceived and organised within a school is determined by the school itself.

To be effective, a school’s career education and guidance programme will:

be designed to meet the needs of the school’s students
be seen as a whole-school responsibility
be planned, structured and co-ordinated
involve the local and wider community.

A career education plan is a way of providing a coherent framework to capture all career-related learning experiences, departmental activities and developmental goals for the future.

Download a PowerPoint presentation on 'Understanding career education' (PPT - 585 KB)