The iGUIDE project aims at supporting adults to develop the core skills necessary to plan and manage their own career.
Overview
There is a considerable gap in provision where adult guidance is concerned especially in the provision of guidance for workers, low-skilled workers and workers in vulnerable employments. The notion of a job for life or a skill for life have long been consigned to history in the rapidly evolving European labour market and many adults at work today can expect a number of changes in their career trajectory before retirement beckons.
The iGUIDE project will support target group members to develop the core skills necessary to plan and manage their own career progression pathways. Developing basic skills like how to conduct research, how to analyse information, how to communicate with employers of labour market experts, how to assess your own skills, competences and interests in the context of a career planning exercise provides an innovative and beneficial way to develop these skill-sets that are also relevant to a variety of non-career related areas. Using the latest technology environments and media-rich learning resources is a good way to develop innovative teaching methods to enhance the learning experience of target group members.
Encouraging adult educators to work in new technology enhanced environments and to use new media-rich resources will only be successful if appropriate induction training is provided that builds the teaching competences and confidence of adult education staff. This will be a key objective of the iGUIDE project through the proposed induction training programme.
Objectives
The iGUIDE project will support low-skilled workers and workers in vulnerable employments to develop the core skills necessary to plan and manage their own career progression pathways. In developing innovative teaching methods to enhance the target group members’ learning experience, this project will use the latest technology environments and media-rich learning resources. Adult educators will be encouraged to work effectively in new technology enhanced environments and to use successfully new media-rich resources following appropriate induction training that will build their teaching competences and confidence.
Methodology
iGUIDE will develop a comprehensive delivery model for a new career planning intervention to support low-skilled workers and workers in vulnerable employments. It will adopt an ab initio approach to developing these new resources at introductory and advanced levels. With goals for guidance service provision increasingly framed within overall lifelong learning policies of Member States, the model developed by iGUIDE will be relevant and applicable beyond the initial target group and throughout the education and training landscape where guidance services are provided.
The iGUIDE resources will also be relevant to workers at all levels throughout the economy who are faced with the prospect of career change. There is at present no guidance service provided for those in work but who may need to alter their career paths in response to the changing labour market. This represents a significant innovation of the iGUIDE project. iGUIDE proposes a completely new approach for the development of career planning as a subject complete with required learning outcomes to be achieved. It proposes a complete shift in prevailing mind-sets where career guidance is concerned and proposes the modernization of career guidance provision to reflect the reality of the European employment marketplace. It proposes harnessing the ubiquity and potential of the latest technologies to develop career planning and support frameworks that are cost neutral to service providers. It further aims to provide individual adult learners with a suite of self-training resources, which they can use to develop their career planning skills independently of education and guidance professionals.