The Guidance and Orientation for Adult Learners project (GOAL) was a collaboration between six partner countries: Belgium (Flanders), the Czech Republic, Iceland, Lithuania, the Netherlands, and Slovenia. The project sought to develop existing models of guidance and orientation in the participating countries so these services could reach low-educated adults and address their needs. Here to tell us how this project was implemented in the Czech Republic is Tereza Halouzková, from the National Institute for Education, Education Counselling Centre and Centre for Continuing Education of Teachers (NUV).

Why was GOAL needed in your country?

In recent years, several steps have been taken to support the development of further education. The main reason for this is the need for employers to innovate, expand or increase the skills of the workforce. The GOAL project is in accordance with the Strategy for Development of Educational Policy in the Czech Republic 2020. Adult education is supported by providing validation and recognition of prior learning through the Act on the Verification and Recognition of Further Education Results.

GOAL was a pilot project in the Czech Republic – the programme developers de facto had to start from scratch. In the Czech Republic there is no sufficient support for the project's target group; services related to career guidance are not widespread and the general public is usually not aware of them. Therefore the outreach approach in career guidance is an uncharted territory in the Czech Republic.

The participation of adults in non-formal education is below the EU 28 average; those with low or no qualifications are less likely to find suitable further education programmes and there has been no systemic guidance support for this particular target group at the national/regional level.

The aims of GOAL for the Czech Republic were focused on reducing inequalities in access to education by promoting the availability and quality of further education. Specific attention was paid to creating an informed environment, which will stimulate demand for further education, especially among the low-educated and socially disadvantaged. The second goal was to develop schools as centres of lifelong learning which will provide not only initial education, but also a wide range of continuing education courses (professional, civic etc.).

What worked well and what did not?

We hoped that this experimentation would help us to build at least one guidance centre in each region in the Czech Republic. These expectations were partially met; career guidance centres were established in 2015 (within the project) in two regions - Olomouc and Ústecký region. Policymakers generally consider GOAL the first positive step that should lead to an integrated system of career guidance which does not exist in the Czech Republic at the moment. They want to use project outputs as a basis for the more sophisticated system they wish to introduce in the future. We can consider GOAL outputs a significant first step.

Intensive cooperation with labour offices has been established and the GOAL project offered a sophisticated personal approach to the clients – this approach resulted in the creation of intensive and beneficial cooperation between GOAL project counsellors and regional labour offices.

At the regional level, there is a will to maintain cooperation at the current level after the project. Partners consider career guidance a great tool to support the target group. The initial worries were focused mainly on cooperation with strategic partners (labour offices) and on reaching the target group. Despite the initial obstacles,(explaining that the regional counsellors were not their competitors, clarifying the mutual benefits of cooperation), the level of cooperation has been excellent.

What did you learn from GOAL?

None of the GOAL clients had previously received guidance. This was their first experience. It is important to point out that clients usually responded positively to the opportunities and information provided by counsellors and there was definitely ‘space’ and demand for these services in the future. However, it is hard to determine if their motivation for further education is real or just a reaction to their current social situation.

We have also learnt that cooperation with labour offices is crucial in the environment because they are the most important institution with access to the target group. Cooperation should be done within the existing networks and should involve schools as well in order to get access to dropouts from upper secondary education. Career counsellors should have extensive knowledge about the further education system (eg. National Register of Qualification). Within GOAL, we learnt that the most effective tool remains direct contact with clients – the GOAL project gave us this opportunity. This approach has a big psychological impact on the counselled clients’ confidence.

In terms of funding, there is a need for a discussion, which should be focused on finding systemic solutions/approaches at the national level, because these services might help clients to determine their goals; but if we take into the account the financial realities of this particular target group, they are often not able to fund courses themselves.

What are the next steps?

There is a need for a systematic solution at the national level. There is also a need to determine which institution will be responsible for the type of services offered by GOAL in the future and to broaden awareness of this service among the general public through promotional tools and campaigns. In terms of funding, the discussion should be focused on finding a systemic solution that addresses the main challenge to the service to date, namely, that the target group are not able to fund their own education. At present, the lack of funding for further educational courses has the potential to lower clients’ motivation, which counsellors have been working so hard to build during the sessions.

We presented outputs and reports to the relevant stakeholders together with recommendations. The GOAL project team have noted that many important issues, such as definition of counsellor competencies, the scope of cooperation with stakeholders, which institutions should be responsible for career guidance provision, the systemic solution in terms of funding etc., require a broad and complex discussion between stakeholders (National Guidance Forum – the Ministry of Education, the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs etc.). NUV can only give recommendations and provide these stakeholders (at the National level) with data outputs, reports etc., but within our institution, NUV cannot implement these policies.