Public policies for career development : case studies and emerging issues for designing career information and guidance systems in developing and transition economies

Abstract

Career guidance policies and services are designed to assist individuals at any point in their lives to manage their careers, including making informed occupational and education and training choices. Career guidance services support economic efficiency, by making the labor market operate more effectively. They can help to ensure that individuals' decisions are based on self-assessments and labor market information, thus reducing market failures. For developing and transition economies, most of which have limited resources, career guidance services can increase the efficiency of the use of scarce education and training resources. The services also promote social equity and inclusion by helping to ensure equal access to information on labor market and education opportunities. More generally, the services promote the rights of individuals to make free decisions about their own lives. They are accordingly a key policy instrument of democratic societies. Public policies on career guidance and counseling are receiving increased recognition and support within developed countries, as demonstrated by the 14-country study initiated by the Education Directorate at OECD, and by the related study conducted by the European Commission as part of its emphasis on career guidance within the context of lifelong learning. In parallel, developing and transition economies are increasingly recognizing the importance of career guidance and have expressed a desire to improve their services. UNESCO recently completed a related study; and the World Bank has financed development of services in a number of developing countries, highlighting such services as an integral part of lifelong learning, and as making a significant contribution to economic efficiency, social equity, and democratic processes.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 97 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.