History of Career Services

Career Services has a proud 18 year history which has included several significant changes in structure and name. 

Career Development and Transition Education Service (CDTES)

Initially established in July 1990 under the name Career Development and Transition Education Service (CDTES - also know as Quest rapuara).  This was downsized from a $13m fully funded public service to a $5m plus revenue generating business within six months of its establishment, due to a change of government in December.

The Careers Service rapuara

A further review in 1995 positioned the Careers Service for division into separate information and guidance businesses with a view to the eventual privatisation of the guidance business.

Little headway was made with the privatisation of guidance, probably because there were no providers of consequence other than Career Services at the time.  Privatisation, without strong government support, appeared likely to lead to a failure of the career guidance market.

Career Services rapuara

The election of a new government in 1999 brought with it an abandonment of any immediate prospect of a significant privatisation of career guidance services.  A policy of a unified Career Services, with two business arms – information production and dissemination, and guidance, was agreed on for future progress. 

Early years of career guidance

Career Services was built on the back of a long line of career and vocational guidance services.  In the 1930s the state became involved in vocational guidance, with the appointment vocational guidance officers in the technical high schools.  This was followed by the establishment of the first vocational guidance offices, called Youth Centres.

In the 1940s these evolved into Vocational Guidance Centres funded by the Education Department in major centres to provide vocational guidance to intending school leavers and were there to provide specialist support to schools.

From the late 1960s the Vocational Guidance Service began to meet the vocational guidance needs of adults.

The 1970s saw a growth in unemployment and a shift of the Service to the Labour Department becoming the Employment and Vocational Guidance Service.

The 1988 restructuring of the Labour Department resulted in the termination of the Service and the establishment three residual services:

• Career Education Service (CES), which then became CDTS then The Career Service rapuara (now Career Services)
• ACCESS, later to become the Education and Training Support Agency ETSA and then later again Skill New Zealand (now a function of the Tertiary Education Commission)
• The New Zealand Employment Service (NZES), later to become the Department of Work and Income (now the Ministry of Social Development).