Policies for information, guidance and coun-selling services
REPORT COMMISSIONED BY CEDEFOP USING THE OECD QUESTIONNAIRE
REVIEW OF CAREER GUIDANCE POLICIES
REPORT
Sweden - May 2002
N.B The views expressed in this document are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect those of Sweden or Cedefop. This text has been written by a non-native English speaker and has not been subject to language revision or editing by Cedefop services.
Authors:
Anders Lovén
Policies for information, guidance and counselling services in Sweden
Dr. Anders Lovén, Malmo University, June 2002
BACKGROUND
In autumn 2000 the OECD’s Education Committee and its Employment, Labour and Social Affairs Committee endorsed a new activity on policies for information, guidance and counselling services. The principal objective of the activity is to understand how the organisation, management and delivery of these services can help to advance some key public policy objectives: for example the provision of lifelong learning for all and active labour market policies.
The OECD devised a questionnaire covering key policy issues in information, guidance and counselling services and types of policy initiatives. It sought basic information on how countries organise, manage and provide information, guidance and counselling services, in order that the context of policy initiatives can be better understood. Fourteen OECD countries have taken part in the review: Australia; Austria; Canada; the Czech Republic; Denmark; Finland; Germany; Ireland; Korea; Luxembourg; the Netherlands; Norway; Spain and the United Kingdom. Each country has completed a detailed national questionnaire, and was visited by a small review team.
At the request of the European Commission Cedefop and the ETF commissioned studies based on the OECD questionnaire to cover those Member States and future Member States which had not participated in the original OECD initiative.
A key definition
The term “information, guidance and counselling services” refers to services intended to assist individuals, of any age and at any point throughout their lives, to make educational, training and occupational choices and to manage their careers. It includes a wide range of activities. For example activities within schools to help students clarify career goals and understand the world of work; personal or group-based assistance with decisions about initial courses of study, courses of vocational training, further education and training, initial job choice, job change, or work force re-entry; computer-based or on-line services to provide information about jobs and careers or to help individuals make career choices; and services to produce and disseminate information about jobs, courses of study and vocational training. It includes services provided to those who have not yet entered the labour force, services to job seekers, and services to those who are employed.
The scope of the questionnaire
The questionnaire, and the OECD activity of which it is a part, focused upon career information, guidance and counselling services: in other words services intended to assist individuals with their career management. These often overlap with other forms of personal services. Job placement, personal counselling, community-based personal mentoring, welfare advice and educational psychology are examples. Frequently these other services are delivered by people who also deliver career information, guidance and counselling. The instructions given in the questionnaire were that where such an overlap existed, these services were to be included when answering the questionnaire. However where separate guidance services existed that do not provide career information, guidance and counselling, these separate services were to be ignored when answering the questionnaire.
Organisation of the questionnaire
The questionnaire was structured in twelve sections:
|1: Overview |7: Delivery settings |
|2: Key goals, influences, issues and initiatives |8: Delivery methods |
|3: Policy instruments for steering services |9: Career information |
|4: The roles of the stakeholders |10: Financing |
|5: Targeting and access |11: Assuring quality |
|6: Staffing |12: The evidence base |
Sources and Methodology
Some material has been translated from more formal documents such as guidelines or governmental reports. Most of the text is however, written in a more non-formal way and based upon different sources. The work is mainly in the form of desk-research, which means that the author has collected the data and analysed it. There are a lot of sources to the data and the written ones are mentioned in the references. The author has also performed a lot of interviews with key persons on different levels.
Some information, especially about the educational system and labour market activities, is assembled in the appendix.
Only the author is responsible for the results and conclusions. Finally the author is very grateful to all persons who have shared their knowledge and experiences.
1. Overview
1.1
In Sweden there is a strong tradition of independence amongst the different social service departments, including that of school and education. These different departments form their own goals and are unique in the sense that the government itself has no legislative power over their activity. However, the social service departments are restricted to certain guidelines from their superior ministries but their main work is basically independent, as the majority of their working officials are state employees and not elected representatives. In turn, the social service department of education has a number of different subordinated departments. The departments, which are involved in information, guidance and counselling, are The National Agency for Education (Skolverket) and Swedish National Labour Market Administration (AMV).
However, in recent years there has been a tendency to a greater decentralisation both of the responsibility and of the actual design of public guidance and information. This is due to a number of different factors such as an ideological shift towards a view where decentralised decisions are prioritised. Another reason is the economic depression since the beginning of the nineties, which had an effect on the way local authorities financed and organised guidance and information.
Thus, today the local authorities individually form their services of information, guidance and counselling according to special guidelines and goals set by the department of education, which in turn answers to the government.
It is from these general goals that the local authorities form their own courses of action to achieve educational guidance and job orientation for all students. The local authority is responsible for the comprehensive and upper secondary school as well as adult education, providing the schools with career counsellors and other necessities to achieve the national goals. However the guidance that takes place at university level and other higher education is the local responsibility of each university. Below follows a figure over different counselling arenas in Sweden.
2. Key goals, influences, issues and initiatives
2.1
The main goals and key objectives of guidance and counselling differ considerably between different Swedish ministries. In general, there are two main views upon guidance and information and its basic purpose, those of the educational departments and those of the labour market and its superior departments.
However, there has been a change from a more extensive description of the services of guidance to a more goal-oriented approach. Thus, the former detailed documents have been replaced in favour of more general guidelines and objectives. This decentralisation has given the local authorities and schools greater freedom in how to provide information and guidance but also greater responsibility.
The goals of the compulsory school can be read in LPO ’94 (the curriculum of the compulsory school from 1994) stating that the school should strive to ensure that all pupils should:
“…acquire sufficient knowledge and experience in order to:
• Be able to examine different options and make decisions on questions concerning their own futures,
• Gain insight into their immediate society, its working and cultural life as well as its organisational activities and
• Be informed about opportunities for further education in Sweden and in other countries.”
Guidelines for the activities in compulsory school include:
“…all who work in the school should:
• Act to enrich the school as a learning environment by establishing contacts not only with working, cultural and organisational life but also with other activities outside the school and
• Contribute to working against any restrictions on the pupil’s choice of study or vocation that are based on gender or social or cultural background.
The teacher should:
• Support individual students when choosing further education and
• Assist in establishing contacts with schools that will be receiving the pupils as well as with organisations, companies and others who can help enrich the school’s activities and establish it in the surrounding society.”
As for the direct work of guidance officers and other similar staff the following can be read:
“Student guidance officers and vocational guidance staff or staff performing equivalent tasks should:
• Inform and guide pupils prior to the next stage of their education and vocational education (…) as well as
• Assist the study and vocational guidance efforts of other members of staff.”
In LGF ’96 (a similar curriculum for non compulsory schooling from 1996) the goals are more set on creating an awareness amongst the students, providing them with the tools, information and guidance to make a mature and well-reasoned decision concerning their future.
It says that:
“The School shall strive to ensure that all pupils:
• Develop their self-knowledge and ability for individual study planning,
• Are consciously able to take a standpoint with regard to further studies and vocational orientation on the basis of their overall experience, knowledge and current information,
• Increase their ability to analyse different choices and determine what the consequences of these may be,
• Obtain knowledge of the conditions of working life, especially within their study area, as well as on the opportunities for education, practice etc. in Sweden and other countries,
• Are aware that all vocational areas are changing, as is technical development, changes in civic and vocational life and increased international co-operation. Pupils shall thus understand the need for personal development in their working life.
As the organisation of guidance and information services of the non-compulsory school is a local matter, the guidelines are not as detailed as those of the compulsory school. For example there are no individual guidelines stating the exact role and responsibility of the teacher, the guidance officer etc.
The guidelines state that:
“On the basis of the division of work drawn up by the school head, the staff shall:
• Provide support for the pupils’ choice of education and future work,
• Inform and guide pupils prior to their choice of course, further education and vocational activity and thus work to counteract restrictions based on sex and social or cultural background,
• When providing information and guidance, use the knowledge that exists among the pupils, the school staff and in the immediate society working outside the school,
• In the education use the knowledge and experience from working and civic life that pupils have or obtain during their education,
• Develop links with universities and university colleges as well as with supervisors and others within working life who can contribute to the achievement of the goals of education,
• In education take advantage of contacts with the surrounding community, different organisations, and its working and cultural life and
• Contribute to prospective pupils receiving information on education provided by the school.”
As for higher education such as university level studies, the goals and guidelines are much shorter and abstract stating:
“Students shall be provided the right to educational guidance and job orientation. The universities are obliged to make sure that necessary information about university studies and other higher education is accessible for all those who intend to commence any higher education.”
As this is the only thing mentioned about guidance and counselling in the national curriculum for universities, the provision and management of services can be organised by counsellors, as they think fit. However a view over the organisation of counselling in higher education shows a rather similar picture, summarised in 7.6.
Some differences
As educational departments strive to provide their “customers” with tools and information to accomplish individual self-realisation as their main goal, the labour market offices have a slightly different view upon the purpose of guidance and counselling. This is a view that is marked by general labour market policy meaning that helping people to find out what they really want to do and also how to realise this, is not the only key goal of the guidance officer. However important it may be to find a future that coincides with the persons’ interests this must always be adjusted to being a resource to the labour market.
The Swedish Labour Market Administration (AMV) has the task of translating Swedish labour market policy into practice. In concrete terms, this means:
providing employment to the unemployed and manpower to employers,
taking steps to counteract manpower “bottlenecks” in short-handed occupations
deploying resources on behalf of those who have difficulty in obtaining work
Labour market policy shall also help to overcome the segregation of the sexes in the labour market. The Government and Riksdag (parliament) are AMV’s principals, and as such they decide targets, regulatory systems and funding conditions for labour market policy.
The Employment Service is the core of the operation and AMV’s principal interface with employers and job seekers. AMS is the central authority and as such issues guidelines and instructions to the County labour Boards (21 in number), allocates resources and monitors activities at county level. Each County Labour Board is similarly responsible for the employment offices in its county. Both AMV and the County Labour Boards have Directorates to decide general policy issues. A more graphic description of the tasks is described in Appendix 3.
2.2
The major influences currently shaping national policies for information, guidance and counselling services are numerous. Examples of these are:
• increased decentralisation, giving local authorities a greater freedom to individually shape their own counselling services,
• greater individualism combined with immensely increased freedom of choice in the educational sector making great demands on counsellors,
• a rapid changing labour market where especially new technology play an important role,
• a mixed labour market with on the one hand a growing shortage of labour and on the other hand marginalised groups with high unemployment
• a shift towards a less clear and distinct formulation of the demands of competence from the labour market. Today many employers emphasise more abstract competence and features such as social competence, independence, flexibility etc.
• a growing tendency for young people to stay longer in education and postpone their entrance in the labour market.
• a multicultural society where persons with another home language than Swedish have a much higher unemployment rate compared to persons with Swedish as their home language
• a much more international educational sector and labour market.
2.3
The most important issue concerning information, guidance and counselling services facing policymakers in Sweden today is the greatly increased freedom of choice in recent years. This is part of a more individualised view in the whole society. The idea is that pupils should form their own training and education in order to be more satisfied and more flexible towards the labour market. With many more alternatives and options to choose among, it has become increasingly difficult to get a general view of the situation, which is necessary in creating a working management and delivery of services. This increased freedom of choice includes not only the many more alternatives brought by international educational co-operation and the European union, but also a change in national education. The new private schools with public funding are increasing in both numbers and popularity. There has also been a change in the upper secondary education as many smaller communities start their own upper secondary schools rather than relying on taxes to larger neighbour communities to educate their students. A larger number of upper secondary schools with a small number of classes have created a shortage of counsellors making the classical solution with one counsellor per school impossible. Thus, the obvious need for new solutions to the organisation of counselling services, guidance and information is one of the main issues for Swedish policymakers.
Parallel to this development is the changing labour market with bottlenecks, shortage of labour and long term unemployment for marginal groups.
Another very fast growing concern among politicians and policymakers is the increasing number of notifications of illness. The government has this problem high on the agenda.
2.4-2.5
During recent years there have been a number of initiatives, changes and tendencies of great significance for the management of counselling services in Sweden. One of the main recent changes is the new organisation of the school system. For many smaller communities it is financially impossible to employ a counsellor for a school which only has a few classes in every school year. This has led to new alternative solutions such as the increasing number of so called “infotheques”, or guidance centres. Another great initiative during recent years is the government’s educational programme The Adult Education Initiative (Kunskapslyftet). This is a massive effort on primarily adult higher education increasing the overall national competence and knowledge. It’s main purpose is to offer adults with shorter educational backgrounds the possibility to get a higher education (under financially favourable circumstances) and through this increase their value and chances for a stimulating job.
There is no immediate connection between the educational system and the labour market situation. The educational system is more oriented towards an ideology where the individual creates his/hers own training.
Some of the examples, which are mentioned in this chapter, will be more developed in the coming chapters. Recently a governmental report (SOU 2001:45) was presented and in the report there was an analysis of the Swedish guidance system and some suggestions for the future. With reference to research studies and seminars and interviews with counsellors, the report concluded that most of the goals for counselling in schools have not been achieved.
As a consequence some new proposals were suggested. Among these were:
• a new law for counselling,
• a new concept called career counselling
• a co-ordinated counselling platform in the local authorities,
• a development of a nation-wide database of information adjusted to Internet
• a demand that all counsellors in school should have authorised training,
• a national centre for career counselling in Sweden.
The report is now under debate and the government expects to finish a proposal in the end of this year.
One very strong tendency the last years is the emphasis on self-service in guidance. This is connected with the rapid development of Internet tools especially in the labour market offices. This tendency is not so strong in the schools where, according to counsellors (Lindh, 1997; Lovén, 2000), the interviews are still their most important tool. In the labour market offices there are often so called self-service corners or departments where the customers themselves can search for information.
Another innovation is the establishment of Infotheques or Guidance centres, which is increasing in many communities. These are often a co-operation between the labour market office and the local authority. Counsellors from both authorities are working together in the centres. Usually the centres are fitted up with a lot of computers and a self-searching area but also with a possibility to meet and talk to a counsellor.
Among new legislation and proposals, the above mentioned, Adult Education Initiative, is one of the biggest. Together with new ways of examining formal and informal qualifications, called validation, new possibilities of entering into adult education have been started.
Initiatives to involve citizens or voluntary organisations in guidance are not so frequent. This question is more commented under 7.9 and 7.10 below.
There has been a great investment in new tools for counselling and information. These are especially developed for information searching. The Swedish Labour Market Administration has developed a lot of different information tools on Internet (see appendix 4) but also the National Agency for Higher Education has taken initiatives to develop Internet sites. Among these are studera.nu, which provides information about studies and careers.
3. Policy instruments for steering services
3.1 There is not so much legislation regarding guidance and counselling in Sweden. Some legislation exists in educational sector usually as general guidelines. This is already described in 2.1 above.
3.2 Political steering of information, guidance and counselling service is more visible in the communities. This is often manifested in creation of new organisations or reshaping the old ones. Sometimes changes or shortages of manpower in the labour market or the educational sector stress the need for special information campaigns. During the first part of the nineties there has also been downsizing in the counselling service for comprehensive school. According to one report (Skolverket, 1997) about 8% of the resources have been cut.
The authorities have not developed ethical standards and quality instruments (see section 11). Instead the organisation of counsellors (The Swedish association counsellors) has made ethical standards and has a special advisory committee for ethical questions. Even one of the labour unions for teachers and counsellors in school has written ethical guidelines. These are however not instruments that the counsellors are obliged to follow.
3.3 Once again it’s important to underline that the Swedish system has combined great freedom for local authorities with general goals. This means that financing of counselling in the educational system is part of the total funding for the local authority or the local university. No money is destined direct to counselling. Usually the government uses different evaluations or quality reports to get a picture of how the local authorities follow the guidelines and how they spend their money. One of the problems in the counselling field is that evaluations have been rather few and not totally up to date. Especially the governmental report (SOU 2001:45) emphasise the lack of evaluations and statistical data on how counselling is organised and performed in the municipalities (see section 12).
3.4 and 3.5 The shift towards a more decentralised system has reduced the more formal co-operation on the government level. Most of the contacts and discussions are on a more informal level among different civil servants in the departments.
Even in the local authorities there are no formal groups, which discuss and work with questions related to information and guidance. In a few municipalities there are advisory groups with representatives from the school system, the labour market office, local working life and politicians. One barrier for a closer co-operation between different authorities on both the local and central level is the existence of separate legislation and connected with these different cultures. One example is the action plans or individual training schemes. These are stipulated in the school system, in the employment services and in the social security system. But they are dependent on different secrecy and cultures. This conclusion is confirmed by a report which state that there are no benefits in the system for co-operation (Frisam, 2000)
The government has now decided to have a thorough look at these different systems, especially for adult people, and try to find a more comprehensive system. On the department level one co-operation has started a few months ago. It’s the National Agency for Education and the Swedish National Labour Market Administration, which make a pilot study regarding information about education. The aim is to rationalise the distribution of information.
4. The roles of the stakeholders
4.1 The employer’s organisation has traditionally had a great interest to take part in and support the development of information and guidance. On the central level there was formerly an established co-operation between the National Agency for Education and with the trade unions. Today this is more on an informal level but trade unions and the employer’s organisation have one meeting place called the advisory group for the labour market. The group takes some initiatives at the government level, produces materials and acts as a pressure group connected to vocational education and guidance. The group also has it’s own homepage.
At the local level the employers’ organisations are represented in different groups together with school representatives. For example the programmes for vocational education in upper secondary school have reference groups to discuss and develop the programmes. Representatives from labour unions are represented here.
4.2 The employers’ organisations produce a lot of materials connected to guidance. Some of these materials are directed towards the teachers, especially in social science. The basic idea is to give the users an understanding of the importance of free enterprise and also inspire students to start their own business. There is also material, which is targeted at students having their weeks of works experience.
A more recent initiative is career fairs in the municipalities. These are often done in co-operation with the local school system and happen annually.
Another project is a national contest showing the best example of co-operation between school and working life. This has been made in two steps. The first one was a regional contest and the winner from that went on to a national contest.
More recently young people representing the employers’ organisations have come out to schools with a whole programme. The students assemble in a large hall to experience different types of role-plays and games. The aim is to give the students a better understanding of the conditions in working life especially from the employers’ side.
As a consequence of the great involvement in school and the students the organisation has also started a Website directed towards young people in school. The site, radar.se, contains materials such as diaries from works experiences, projects of international co-operation and information about young enterprise.
The employers’ organisation is also active in higher education. One of the more visible activities is the organisation of working-life days. This is a possibility for students to meet representatives from different companies.
4.4. Trade unions take part in the same bodies as mentioned under 4.1. The Swedish tradition is that different advisory groups usually consist of both representatives from the employers’ organisation and the trade unions.
4.5 Trade unions publish a lot of materials directed to schools and students. Three big trade unions produce their own material. The biggest one, LO, The Swedish Trade Union Confederation, have especially material about vocational education and the conditions in working life. Sometimes they have published material direct to the teachers in social science, often with a content around working conditions and the importance of influencing and taking part in the development of working life conditions. Materials connected to the students working life experiences are also part of their supply.
Another organisation is TCO, The Swedish Association of professional Employees, with materials, which in many ways have the same intention and content as LO. Saco, The Swedish Confederation of Professional Associations, the third biggest labour union, represents graduate professionals and others with comparable qualification.
The most well known material is a brochure called “Choose a vocation”, which give a broad description of vocations with academic qualifications. The descriptions contain working conditions, educational demands, salary, future prospects and much more.
All the three labour unions have Webpages with contents related to guidance. Saco in particular has a Website with a lot of materials and links connected to the guidance area (see appendix 4).
4.7 Encouragement is not the word to describe how policies work with organisations mentioned in the questionnaire. Often these organisations get financial support, which they can use to play a role in information and guidance. But it’s up to the organisation and it is not a thing that’s on the top of the agenda for policymakers.
5. Targeting and access
5.1 Certain groups in Sweden have been the target for concentrated efforts. One of the projects oriented towards adults is the former mentioned Adult Education Initiative.
This special adult education programme is the biggest adult education initiative in the history of Sweden. All Swedish municipalities participate in this five-year project, which started in 1997.
The programme primarily emphasises unemployed adults who wholly or partially lack three-year upper secondary school qualifications. It offers these persons compulsory and upper secondary school studies. The primary aim of the programme is to give those adults who have the greatest educational need the opportunity to expand their basic knowledge.
In order to make this initiative more attractive to the target groups, several packages were introduced to give support, such as economic help during education, additional counselling and specially adapted adult education. A large number of adults have increased their competence via the Adult education Initiative but research studies (SOU 1999:39) show that many more women than men have used these possibilities. A priority with The Adult Education Initiative was to reach groups whose first language was not Swedish. This has often been in the form of a combination of different employment measures and intensified language training.
In parallel with the Adult Education Initiative many measures have been introduced to reduce the number of long-term unemployed. The labour market offices in particular have been at the centre of these measures. This has been achieved in co-operation with the local social services departments and with the regional social insurance office.
5.2 The goals have often been expressed in political terms such as to reduce total unemployment to 4%, which the Social Democratic government set as a priority at the beginning of their term of office in 1998. Other examples are the Activity guarantee (see appendix 6) and the Adult Education Initiative, which were special parliamentary resolutions.
5.3 Examples of active steps taken are a reorganisation of guidance activities with the establishment of special guidance centres. In addition, several local authorities have started joint projects between different departments, such as the social services department and the labour market offices, as a direct result of this.
5.4 To reach new groups for adult education a lot of methods and initiatives has been developed. One new initiative is to catch people at their work. In co-operation with trade unions schools try to find those adults who did not attend school for any length of time and had negative experiences of their time in school. Another method has been information via shops and special market stalls in municipalities. This in combination with “open house” at the different training centres. In certain cases, brochures have been distributed to all households in a municipality. Advertising in newspapers and on the radio has also been common. Some areas have produced Websites to describe what is available.
In meetings with adults, methods have been prioritised which create confidence and activation. An example of this is group counselling which has been developed by the department of employment over many years
5.5 Particularly in the framework of unemployment insurance and supplementary benefits there are many compulsory regulations. These mean that people applying for benefit who refuse to accept any offered work or work experience can have their benefit frozen. One example is the above mentioned Activity guarantee, which is described in the appendix 6.
5.6 There is an old tradition in Sweden that counselling shall be an individual right, without cost and available to as many groups as possible. This comprehensive approach can be combined with a more targeted approach. This means that specific investments are made on a number of groups (see above). In addition to the above groups, efforts have been made with young people who did not continue after compulsory school, did not receive a complete certificate or dropped out of upper secondary School. Local Authorities have a specific responsibility, which means that these individuals are offered some form of work-related activity, practice or education. This responsibility lasts until the individual reaches 20. The local authorities can also take responsibility for young persons up to the age of 24. This is made in co-operation with the labour market offices.
5.7 Those people outside the education system or not registered at a labour market office have difficulty finding information on counselling. Labour market offices have previously given comprehensive service to “change seekers” – those applicants in work or education but have a need to discuss their situation. Today this group of applicants has a low priority. Possibilities available are to seek information via Internet, via self-service at the employment office or via the Infotheque. Note that the latter is not available in all municipalities, often being established in those, which are large or very large. Another possibility is for these people to discuss with a counsellor at the University or college. However the risk is that they will receive information regarding that institution’s particular course offering. Independent counselling is more difficult to find and in smaller municipalities it is almost impossible. The counselling report (SOU 2001:45) has highlighted this limitation and requested a co-ordinated platform for counselling so that all groups can gain access to independent, neutral counselling.
5.8 Counselling for adults has been performed partly by the different adult education institutions and partly by the employment offices. Adult education by local authorities, which is dominant, contains formal education for adults up to today’s upper secondary school level. Folk high schools or other types of schools offer other post-upper secondary complementary education, which is not at university level. According to the Law of School (1985:1100) each local authority shall try to reach all who have the right to adult education and motivate them to participate, partly in Local Authority adult education. Adult education has expanded rapidly in the last few decades. The number of adult counsellors has increased and new forms of organisation have started through initiatives such as the Adult education Initiative. How counselling is organised is dependent upon the size of the local authority.
In smaller authorities (up to 20 000 inhabitants) it is usual for one or two counsellors to work at an adult education complex and there work together with management, teachers and administration. In larger authorities it is more usual for groups of counsellors organised according to specialisation or level of adult education. Another organisation is a totally separate, independent group of adult counsellors which serve the different adult education organisers.
The employment offices also give a wide range of information and counselling to adults. This however, is more aimed at groups who find it harder to get a foot into the labour market, as mentioned earlier. In the last few years, Employment offices have invested heavily in self-service in the form of customer corners with printed material, and computers connected to the Internet. The offices have also invested in the Internet which means that applicants can find information on education, employment, job vacancies, etc One of the tools which is prioritised in adult counselling is the individual study plan. Once written, there is a responsibility within both adult education and the employment offices. The study plan should include general goals, career plans, concrete study goals, time plan and planned curriculum, etc. Studies show however that many participants in adult education have no study plan and it is obviously incomplete for others (SOU 1999:39).
6. Staffing
6.1 Within the educational system, excluding university education, the majority of the counsellors have a university education, see 6.3. A smaller group of vocational teachers are mainly employed in comprehensive Schools. This disappearing group combines teaching and counselling. According to the counselling report (SOU 2001:45) it is worrying that a growing group of counsellors do not have any formal counselling training. The report therefore suggests that a formal training as a counsellor should be a requirement for employment as a counsellor. In the Labour market offices the picture is unclear as a result of organisational change, however the role is fulfilled by so called employment officers who may have different speciality. The official term is employment officer with emphasis on information, supervision or counselling (advice giving). There are also officers at the social insurance office that have counselling responsibilities without this role dominating their work. See a graphic description in appendix 5.
6.2 There hasn’t been any survey over the number of staff, their age, gender etc since 1988 in the school system. However some statistics are available from Statistics Sweden (SCB) which show that about 5 000 guidance specialists are working in Sweden. 2 000 of these are working in the educational sector and most of the remaining in the labour market offices. However, as mentioned before, guidance in the labour market offices are today intertwined with job placement and some other functions.
According to statistics from the universities, which have education programmes for counsellors, the students are mainly female.
6.3 There is one main training course for counsellors in Sweden. This is a three-year course leading to a Bachelors degree. Counsellors with a degree normally seek employment within education or at a labour market office. A limited number apply for work in the private sector. An increasing number of counsellors have been employed at the social insurance office or within projects aimed at people who are difficult to place in the job market.
To be employed as a guidance specialist in the school system (except for higher education) there are some special demands in the curriculum. In the legislation (The Law for School) it says that to be employed, with no time restrictions, and working with educational and vocational orientation in the public sector, the applicants should have an education suitable for this activity. Persons who don’t fulfil these standards can be employed for not more than one year at a time. The sentence above is open for interpretations and in some municipalities guidance specialists have been employed with a teacher’s degree or another academic degrees, usually based in the social science sector.
The report from the government (SOU 2001:45) underlines that too many guidance specialists do not have suitable education for fulfilling their task. In regions where there are few trained guidance specialists there is a tendency to employ teachers or other persons, sometimes transferred from another job, as guidance specialists. It is not possible to estimate exactly how many employed counsellors who lack formal training but according to different sources the number can be anything between 15-25 %.
The employment office (job-centre) has a special internal training for counsellors. This lasts for about a year and includes both short courses as well as practise with a tutor. In addition the labour market office has a range of courses which can be described as further education. The labour market office has traditionally recruited people with long work experience and/or experience of trade union work. The trend is now that more and more people are employed with academic qualifications in counselling, personnel administration or social work.
Academic training for a counsellor is 3 years and this includes several different elements. The difference from the training at the labour market office is that the latter is much less detailed and does not have the academic stamp which can mean more extensive literary studies or the writing of different essays.
The academic education contains three main blocks, sociological, psychological and practices. Practice is around 6 months, the other two blocks are of 2 years duration each. There is also special examination work including a long essay connected to an area of counselling. In addition to the courses above, there is a wide flora of education a counsellor may have completed. The few private counsellors can have a background in psychology or a financial education combined with personnel administration. In some schools there are teachers employed who perform counselling duties. In some cases, a special shortened education has been arranged for these people to give them a more stable basis in their counselling activities.
6.4 The list of expertise given in the questionnaire only includes part of the requirements to work with counselling in my opinion.
Counsellors in the educational sector require the following competencies:
Communication skills
Group facilitation skills
Individual and group assessment skills
Labour market knowledge
Knowledge of education and training opportunities
Knowledge of career development theory
Knowledge of career counselling theory and counselling interventions
Knowledge of different forms for financial support
Administrative skills
The same applies to counsellors at labour market offices, the difference being that knowledge of possibilities within education is not required to the same degree. These counsellors should have more knowledge about different employment initiatives. Group counselling is more prominent at the employment services.
6.5 Generally speaking, counsellors have the expertise given above, especially if they have attended the special courses. As mentioned earlier, teachers who perform counselling activities felt that they were not equipped for such tasks and have therefore requested further education.
6.6 Counsellors generally have certain possibilities to receive in-service training and further education within the framework of their employment. Within local authorities a subscriber system is common in certain regions. This means that counsellors receive between 5-10 in-service training days per year for a fixed sum. These days can focus on development of different skills or a deeper insight into the employment market, education, forecasts, etc. Smaller groups of counsellors have the possibility to take part in shorter courses of 1-2 weeks duration. Sometimes the employer takes the cost and the employee may attend the course in work time. Especially counsellors from the labour market offices have been offered the possibility to attend these types of courses. The courses may be targeted towards certain methods such as Myers and Briggs testing or Holland’s Self-Directed Search, or more theoretical courses about changes in the employment/educational environment.
The faculty for counselling also offers courses of different lengths for active counsellors. These courses, either free or charged, vary in length from several days to several weeks. Examples of courses offered are: group counselling skills, computers in guidance or development of interview techniques. Courses leading to research education are also given. These are of one year in length and are a continuation of the general counselling education. There is no special research education for tutors in Sweden. Those tutors who have themselves reached doctorate status have normally reached this level through the scientific principles of education.
6.7 As early as the 1950’s, Sweden introduced the system of works experience in state schools. This normally encompassed 2-4 weeks during the last 3 years in comprehensive School. Students attend a workplace and, as far as law allows, actively partake in works experience. Employers offer special mentors and are not recompensed for this. They see it as a future investment and both employers’ organisations and trade unions support the whole activity. Studies show that this is very much appreciated by students. Some teachers give students tasks, which will be reported on when the student returns to school. Several studies show however that the initiative could be better developed and that more account could be taken of the students’ experiences (Borhagen & Lovén, 1991; Henrysson, 1994). Even in the lower school years, up to 6th Class it is also common for students to visit their parents’ places of work or to go on study visits to companies or in institutions where one of the parents are working. Other projects are where organisations such as Rotary or Lions send professionals to schools to talk about their work in a more personal way.
7. Delivery settings
7.1 There are no compulsory lessons in career education in the school system. However counsellors will occasionally have lessons/information sessions and teachers occasionally have career related themes in their teaching. (See also 7.2.)
7.2 Counsellors normally have lessons in both comprehensive School and upper secondary School. This most often occurs with different choices, such as choice of higher year course, or change to a different type of school which the counsellor where the counsellor informs students of the different possibilities. To a lesser extent some counsellors teach about changes in working life, training in decision making and training around which factors influence the individual in a situations where they must make choices.
Social sciences teachers have occasionally given lessons in the education system and how the employment market works. Teaching in subjects such as trade union organisations, salary conditions, and the development and change of different professions can be subjects within social science. Together with works experience and study visits, it is the social sciences and Swedish where pre and post careers work takes place.
7.3 See description in 6.7
7.4 Most students in year nine have personal interviews with their counsellor. The counsellor invites them or they come voluntarily to discuss their future plans and especially the choice of upper secondary education. In earlier grades the pupils have the opportunity to come and ask questions and discuss with the counsellor but the majority come in the ninth grade. Some counsellors organise work experiences (Prao) and they have interviews with most of the pupils before they go there.
Most counsellors have a waiting room with a wide range of written materials and also one or two computers with connection to Internet and different Websites related to counselling. Larger institutions, like some of the upper secondary schools or adult education centres, also have a library where there can be a career corner with materials and computers.
Careers fairs have become more and more established. They are often organised in co-operation between local employers and upper secondary schools and they usually take place a few months before the choice of upper secondary education. The target group is pupils in year nine but also pupils from earlier grades are invited.
Some universities also have a lot of different activities before the choice of higher education. Among the activities are visits by students - sometimes former pupils from the school - or special buses loaded with brochures, computers and one or two counsellors.
7. 5 It’s not easy to describe how the balance is between career and job information services; and guidance and counselling services in the labour market offices. As mentioned before there are some targets groups that are especially important for the offices. A basic idea is self-service so that many of the customers can manage to search for information themselves. Clients can also have interviews with different people from the staff.
There are employment offices in nearly all municipalities. Many of the larger towns and cities have specialised employment offices catering to specified occupational categories, e.g. technology, industry, caring services, economics and the arts. Employment Service amenities are not only for the unemployed. Persons who are employed but want a change of occupation can also turn to the Employment Service, which offers recruitment and placement services for employers as well.
Great changes have taken place in Sweden’s public Employment Service over the past few years. A variety of on-line placement services have been developed. See appendix 6. The main purpose of the AMS` Internet programme is to improve and modernise the infrastructure provided by the Employment Service by creating a comprehensive Web site for placement, vocational guidance and information on education and the labour market.
In appendix 4 there is a graphical description of the types of work, which the labour market offices are involved with.
According to my sources and the media, AMS´ Internet-site has been a big success, and more than 550,000 individuals use the Internet services each month. This corresponds to about fifteen percent of the Swedish work force. After six years of operation, the majority of AMS´ information and brokerage services are accessed through the Internet, allowing the staff of the Employment Service to concentrate more on individual support for job seekers and employers.
7.6 There are two ways to go through universities in Sweden. The first is to apply for one of the programmes and the other way is to combine different courses and subjects.
In the universities there are also two types of guidance specialists – central counsellors and institutional counsellors. Central counselling often, but not always, has guidance specialists with the counsellor training. Within this system, the counsellors provide an overall service to students inside the university, and also offer an external service to students interested in entering the university. The institutional counsellors, which are often teachers or researchers, with no counsellor training, specialise more in helping the students through or beyond their programme or course. The idea behind the two systems is that the students need both very specialised information and guidance and sometimes more common or broader information or guidance.
The central counsellors are often concentrated in a centre with career libraries and some self-service. These centres are often combined with personal and study counselling services. The guidance specialists work tasks can vary between different employees but usually there are the following tasks:
• answer a lot of telephone calls regarding information and/or counselling
• answer e-mails which according to same guidance specialists have grown so much that’s it’s hard to handle it and.
• Conduct personal interviews
• Visit schools and other institutions
• Administrative work
• Write materials for information or check local information materials
According to an evaluation made at the University of Lund (2002) the interviews are an especially important and appreciated method used by the central counsellors.
Except for the universities they’re some types of further education, which are not on a university level. These programmes have no regulations for information, guidance and counselling services and no survey has been done to describe the counselling service.
In Sweden there is also a rather old type of school institutions called folk high school (folkhögskola). They offer education mainly on the upper secondary level, both theoretical and more vocation-oriented. Traditionally the students have had accommodation at the school but more and more students are living outside the schools. The folk high schools are also well known for their alternative ways of teaching.
7.7 The private sector in counselling has always been small in Sweden. A few examples can be mentioned but the small demand has lead to a shutdown. In the last 5-10 years, there has been a growing sector of private employment offices, such as Manpower and Poolia. Some of them have some counselling activities, but usually in a minor scale. Some firms specialise in helping companies to reorganise or carry out downsizing. New Start is the best known of these firms and works in some regions in Sweden. Career coaches are another group, which have a more limited market. Their main task is to support and follow-up people who have a new employment or a new position in the company. The customers are often on a managerial level and the company pays the fee.
It is possible that private counselling can grow during the coming years but it depends on the ideological climate, which up to today has been rather cold for private solutions. One possible development is that the local authorities have a procedure for bidding where private counselling companies can give their bid.
7.8 The only step to open up the market for private initiatives is the abandonment of the monopoly for employment offices. This was abandoned in 1993 and has led to the establishment of some companies in the sector. The Swedish employment offices are however still an outstanding actor on this scene. According to one report (SOU 2000:119) these new companies have expanded their service to some sort of vocational or career counselling. Often these services are offered over the Internet. A newly started collaboration is between the Swedish National Labour Market Administration and one of the private companies, Manpower Ltd. The purpose is, among other things, to develop the Internet as a tool for posting CVs.
7.9 There is not a big tradition in Sweden for non-profit organisations because usually the social welfare system has been accepted as a good solution. But there are a growing number of organisations, which are fulfilling some indirect guidance service. In some areas local immigrant associations have started projects to activate some of the immigrants, which are not so well integrated in the Swedish society. Sometimes these projects are in co-operation with the local authorities or with housing firms, usually owned by the local authorities.
Organisations for women, who have been pursued by men in their surroundings, are also a growing sector. Usually women, get a possibility to talk through their situation and sometimes help to get a new identity through these organisations.
There is also a combination of measures from social departments and guidance specialists from labour market offices or from the local authority. Team-working, with employees from these different sectors, is used in trying to create good and comprehensive solutions for people with more complex problems.
7.10 There are no signs that government has tried to increase the role in guidance for these organisations. But funding from local authorities or direct from government has been more prioritised.
8. Delivery methods
8.1 As mentioned before the decentralised system has reduced the initiatives from central authorities. Compared to the seventies and eighties there is much less information produced by the central authorities. The policy, which is rather invisible, seems to be that the government lines up the big goals and then it’s up to local authorities or private companies to develop good information tools. On the central level the most visible initiatives are information especially on the Internet. The VHS, AMV and Skolverket have developed big databases searchable on the Internet. There have also been some projects, state funded, in distance counselling. As mentioned in chapter 2.4-2.5 the co-operation between local authorities and local labour market offices in the Infotheques is another project but on the local level. At a regional or local level there is co-operation with the aim of producing written materials about different choices of education. A few regions have also developed Websites containing information mainly about education.
As a consequence a lot of the examples mentioned below have been developed by private companies (CD-ROM information packages or Websites) or in organisations such as AMV (group guidance methods) or employers’ organisations and trade unions (fairs, exhibitions and Websites). The list below gives some examples of information and guidance material and the responsible body behind these.
• Psychological tests in Sweden are not so common in the work of guidance specialists. Usually this is a task which psychologists in the employment service handle. They are a rather small group and the tests are directed towards a limited group of people. Some guidance officers in the labour market offices has taking part in courses for using test like Myers and Briggs or Holland’s’ Self-Directed Search, but overall the use of these is rather infrequent.
• Telephone is an old and very much used instrument in guidance. But new methods for using the telephone haven’t been developed except for the establishment of distance adult education where the telephones together with e-mail are important tools.
• Private companies have developed some CD-ROM packages. The programmes are on a self-service basis but the marketing is directed towards the guidance specialists. Two of them, Struktur and Horisont, are made for self exploration and connected to the construction of action plans. Another programme (Merit) has a content where the user can get information about formal qualifications to higher education and, for example, get recommendations about which courses they need to complement their current skills.. According to representatives for the companies these types of programmes are, hard to get payment for, partly because it’s possible to find this information on the Internet and partly because the guidance specialists can’t afford to buy them.
• There has been an enormous development of different Internet-based tools in information and guidance. Central authorities have developed the biggest of them especially AMS but also Skolverket and VHS. In appendix 4 there is a short description of some of the Internet tools, which have been developed by these authorities. Even private companies have developed information on Internet. Syo-guiden is the biggest Website in the Nordic countries and has a very large number of links related to education, work and employment. Another example is the Career guide, which consists of a lot of different tests, and also materials to help the user to prepare better for job searching. The employers’ organisations and trade unions have also made some Internet applications. See chapter 4.
• Careers fairs are more and more common in Sweden. In 7.4 some examples are described. Apart from these examples one of the trade unions (Saco) have a big fair in large cities every year presenting especially information about academic training and vocations.
• AMV has developed group counselling methods under many years. Some private companies have published books and training materials for use in group guidance and/or in personal counselling.
• The use of career information libraries has developed in both the educational and labour market sectors. It’s often organised as self-service corners or a combination of waiting rooms with an exhibition of written and digitalized information. Libraries in the municipalities have also made special department for career information and in some cases in co-operation with guidance specialists.
• The use of organised workplace experience is, as mentioned in 6.7 an old tradition in Sweden. Except for the comprehensive school there is a lot of different activities in upper secondary school. Usually these experiences are on a week-basis but in some cases last for several weeks. In higher education there is also some examples of work place experiences but usually directed towards the type of training the students have.
8.2 All the examples in appendix 4 are just a few years old. There is also an ongoing discussion on how to develop new and more individualised tools on the Internet. Another aim is to create a more comprehensive database including all education and training opportunities and a lot of labour market information. This is also a proposal from the national report mentioned in 2.4.
8.3 No special tools have been developed for the use of screening. A project in the eighties with the aim of developing screening tools was for unknown reasons abandoned and since then no big steps have been taken in this direction.
9. Career information
Questions 9.1 and 9.2 are already answered in chapter 8.
9.3 The target groups for information, guidance and counselling are widespread. Both central and local authorities give information in a broad perspective to most groups in the society. As mentioned before there are, however, some groups that is more prioritised than others. The Internet applications, for example, are directed towards groups searching for information about education and/or labour market.
Material from local authorities is usually oriented towards their own citizens, for example, information about upper secondary school to pupils from comprehensive schools.
A lot of upper secondary schools for adult education and universities also present information to groups, which they think, can be their future students.
9.4 Most producers of information use data already published, but they organise and structure it in a new and different way. Some producers expand the information by making interviews or sending out questionnaires.
9.5 Most of the information passes some sort of inspection. One person or several persons can do this. In some cases the information is sent back to the school or the institution for a renewed check. One of the big Internet databases, studera.nu (see appendix 4), totally relies on data produced by the universities and there is no check on the central level. Another way, not so uncommon, is guidance specialists commenting incorrectly or missing information and in a way acting as a quality inspector.
None of the state-funded databases have any advertisements in the WebPages. But the private ones have advertisements that sometimes are intertwined with the information. Some of the tests that are published on the WebPages are presented without any background or description of how they have been constructed.
9.6 During the development of Internet applications or printed material many producers have reference groups with guidance specialists or student/customers. The reference group discusses different drafts or design ideas and gives their opinions. Some producers make pilot versions (mostly central authorities) and after some tests change or refine the original production. Another used methods to make more user-friendly applications are evaluations to a sample of the users.
9.7-9.8 The Internet applications are free on Internet. Some written materials are send to special target groups and/or to guidance specialists and their offices.
One type of material, for example big handbooks or guides for studies abroad, is not free. Usually the guidance officers buy the materials and present it in their offices at no cost.
9.9 The government has made no direct initiatives to increase the role of the private sector in information and guidance. However as indicated before the decreased role of central authorities has opened a market for private companies.
9.10 One of the biggest databases "Occupational A to Z" (se appendix 4) contains descriptions of occupations, showing duties, training alternatives, employment prospects and rates of pay. A list of closely related occupations is also included. Saco, one of the trade unions, has a widespread brochure, called “To choose a vocation”. It contains a short description of the vocation, educational demands, rates of pay, employment prospects and more. The Job Bank has a lot of data structured on both a regional and a local level.
According to my sources there are no descriptions of the results of graduate employment or course satisfaction surveys.
10 Financing
10.1, 10.3-10.4 A common theme through this report is the description of a system where the central government has left much of the responsibility for information, guidance and counselling to the departments mentioned in 1.1 and local authorities. This means that the local authorities independently form their services of information, guidance and counselling according to special guidelines and goals. The system is financed as a part of the service that local authorities give to their citizens. It’s not possible to find any special funds for these areas. The local authorities have to follow the guidelines in school curriculum but this is very much a question of interpretation. According to the report (SOU 2001:45) mentioned earlier there is a great need for a survey describing how different local authorities organise the services and how much they invest into it.
In the old system, which was abandoned in the mid-eighties, funding was connected to the amount of students in the school system. Usually one full-time guidance specialist had a responsibility for 800-1000 students. According to a survey made by the Skolverket (1997) there has been a cut in funding equivalent to 8% but these figures can vary among the municipalities.
In higher education the funding situation is the same as mentioned above but the increased competition between universities has, according to my sources, created a need for more information officers and guidance specialists. There is however no safe figures to show this development.
In the labour market office, information, guidance and counselling are part of the services and according to the authorities it is hard to make an estimation of the costs of these activities. On the central level a lot of funding has been directed towards the development of Internet tools. But, also in this case, it’s not possible to give an exact figure as to how much this has cost.
10.2 A cornerstone in Sweden concerning guidance is that it should be available for everyone who needs it and without cost for the individual. In between there are waiting lists but none should be refused help in this area. The private companies mentioned in 7.7-7.8 have another target group for their activities. As mentioned before they usually work inside a company and the company pays for their work. Even the career coaches have special fees that are usually paid by the employers.
10.5 It’s not possible to get all the statistics, asked for in this chapter. According to statistics from Statistic Sweden, 2001, guidance specialists and personal officers are in the same category. The middle salary was about 2 300 Euro and the median salary 2 200 Euro.
Saco, one of the trade unions, that organise guidance specialists in schools, has statistics for this group. Starting salary is about 1 700 Euro and salary after 15 years 2 300 Euro.
11. Assuring quality
11.1 The decentralised system has lead to a situation where the central government isn’t so involved in quality questions regarding information, guidance and counselling. The previous mentioned governmental report can be described as one step to getting an overview. However the resources, for the investigation, were too limited to make a broader description of the counselling services. This was also mentioned in the report where the need for more data about the situation for guidance in Sweden is underlined. Another step to be mentioned is the evaluations that from time to time has been made about guidance. The National Agency for Education usually conducts these but the last one was seven years ago. As mentioned before some co-operation has started around the development of Internet tools but not every one of the central authorities is involved.
Both the National Agency for Education and the National Labour Market Board make follow up-studies and evaluations where information, guidance and counselling can be a part of the study. The labour market offices, for example, make customer inquiries every month. The National Agency for Education has different types of inspection in schools where some areas can be oriented towards information and guidance. According to the National report the National Labour Market Board has made no thorough study of results and consequences of counselling.
11.2 No standards have been developed regarding information, guidance and counselling services.
11.3 There are no standards of competence for the staff except for the previous mentioned training in counselling which is not a stated in the curriculum or other guidelines.
11.4 As mentioned in chapter 6.3 there are no formal regulations but a clear guideline that guidance specialists in school should have suitable education. In the labour market offices most of the employees have an in-service training which can include a special part around guidance and counselling.
11.5 There are no special guidelines concerning information quality standards.
11.6 The most proactive organisation is the counsellors association, which are involved in lobbying in many ways. The association also has a journal where questions regarding quality and ethics in guidance are discussed. Even at the regional level this organisation have boards, which act, in a lot of questions on their level.
The different types of guidance specialists are members of separate trade unions. Most of the guidance specialists in school are members of one of the big trade unions. Employees at the labour market offices are usually members of another trade union. One of the trade unions for teachers has developed some ethical guidelines for both teachers and guidance specialists. They are, however, only recommendations.
12. The evidence base
12.1 The questions in 12.1 have been investigated in a number of projects since the end of the sixties. Central authorities have mostly initiated the different research projects. There are, however, no regular statistical collections over use and access to the counselling services. The results, especially from a social background perspective, are a bit contradictory. On the one hand results show a picture where clients with good resources have great demands on the counselling services. Jonsson, (1989) and later Skolverket (1997) demonstrated that students belonging to mainly upper and middle class (in Sweden called social group I and II) had a lot of help from the family but still put great demands on the counsellors. On the other hand, some research pointed out that counsellors gave students with special needs, mostly from working class (called social group III and IV), more time and more interviews than other groups (Borhagen & Lovén, 1991 Skolverket, 1997). The latter results were combined with a description where counsellors were more proactive in searching or getting the students with special needs to interviews. One explanation is that a lot of short interviews, mainly information-oriented, are directed towards higher social groups and longer, more person-oriented interviews are prioritised to lower social groups. Research shows no clear differences between gender and the levels of use.
As mentioned before almost all students in year nine meet a counsellor. This is the same independent of geographical location. In the upper secondary school a lot of students have interviews but not everyone is called for a meeting. In adult education usually every student gets a first interview with the aim of making an individual study plan, which can be changed underway.
12.2 The question of how the local authorities have established their need and demand for counselling is very hard to answer. There is no research focusing on this question. A non-representative discussion with representative from local authorities gives a mixed picture. In many communities the old system with a fixed number of counsellors has been a starting point for the organisation. Some local authorities have made surveys to get a picture of student’s demands and expectations. In other cases the school and especially the head teacher have had the responsibility for the resources. A shift of school counsellor has in some schools led to a downsizing of the counselling service. In other cases it’s quite obvious that the economical depression during the nineties led to downsizing.
To summarise, the level of counselling service seems to be due to a lot of factors such as the financial situation, results from research or the personality of the head teacher or counsellor. It’s, however, important to underline, that most students in education have access to a counsellor, usually situated in the institution.
The question of expectations has been more investigated in research (Jonsson, 1995; Lindh, 1997; Lovén, 2000). Most of the reports have discussed two types of expectations. The first one is mainly information-based. The student wants information about education, vocations or the labour market situation. The second one is more directed towards the student’s self. Questions like; who am I, what can I do, what do I want, are central for this group of students. These two expectations are in many cases intertwined. The information group seems to be the biggest one but it’s not uncommon that clients subconsciously have a lot of questions, which are related to their personal situation. In a study from the labour market offices (Lovén, 1991) the author described two groups of clients, choice cases and change cases. The last group was characterised by more complex life situations and as a consequence had a need for more a process oriented counselling.
12.3 A broad description of the criteria for judging the counselling services usually contains two directions. The one most used is the client’s opinions of counselling. The other one is follow-up studies on the outcomes of counselling. Usually the first one consists of questions concerning client satisfaction, degree of security, or climate in the interview. The second one is related to questions like type of occupation related to advice in counselling, number of dropouts in different forms of training, evaluation of action plans, costs related to outcomes etc. The main part of research is of the first kind, usually questionnaires or interviews with students and other groups. Some research has also analysed counsellors’ interviews and connected the analysis with expectations and outcomes (Lindh, 1997; Lovén, 2000). Most studies show a good appreciation for the counsellors’ work sometimes combined with criticism regarding counsellors’ availability, personality or lack of skills.
12.4 The first three questions can be answered with a firm No. There has been no research, which connects costs with benefits, service level, characteristics of clients etc. This fact is commented on the governmental report (2001). “The area (research) is neglected and no reliable instrument, neither on the national or local level which show results or effects from counselling initiatives has been developed. There is a need for a unified initiative to develop such ratios.” (p. 120, the authors translation).
12.5 The establishment of counselling centres (Infotheques) has resulted in development of Internet tools and more self-services. Some of these initiatives have been evaluated and the main conclusion is that different clients have different needs. One of the research studies found three types of client behaviour. The first group was clients who came and picked up information without any contact with the counsellors. The second group wanted a limited counsellor contact in order to ask short questions or get structured information. The third group had more questions and wanted a personal interview. Some other projects (Lindström, 1999) show similar results. The researcher talked about three types of client behaviour. One group, the patients, was passive and wanted a lot of personal help. Another group, the clients, had a need of personal attention and was also rather passive. The third group, finally, were called colleagues, and were more proactive and willing to engage in a lot of activities.
These initiatives and the research connected to them underline the fact that clients differ in needs and expectations. One main goal for the counsellor is to meet the person where he or she is. It also stresses the point that good counselling services must be organised so that neither over serving nor under serving is the result.
12.6-12.8 There are no national research centres that specialise in information, guidance and counselling. Overall the research around these areas is fragmentary and based on a few researchers own interest for this mission. As said under 12.4 the area is not prioritised and as a result the reports are few and with no co-ordination. This year the National Board of Education has taken an initiative in co-operation with the representatives for training of counsellors. Small pilot-projects have been funded and it remains to be seen if there’s going to be a continuation.
References
Borhagen, K. & Lovén, A. (1991). Vem behöver syo? Stockholm: Skolöverstyrelsen.
Frisam. (2000). Lönsam samverkan för individ och samhälle.
Henrysson, L. (1994). Syo-kulturer i skolan. Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International.
Jonsson, C. (1989. Om skola och arbete. Umeå: Umeå Universitet, Pedagogiska institutionen.
Lindh, G. (1997). Samtalet i studie- och yrkesvägledningsprocessen. Stockholm: HLS Förlag.
Listerman, T. (2000). Hämtare, väljare och frågare. Uppsala universitet. Institutionen för Kommunikationsvetenskap, Medier och Kommunikation
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Lovén, A. (1993). Den ovissa framtiden. Malmö: Lärarhögskolan.
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Appendix 1
An overview of the Swedish School system
Compulsory school
Compulsory school includes compulsory basic school, school for the Saami peoples of northern Sweden, special school (for children with impaired sight, hearing or speech), and compulsory school for mentally handicapped. The nine-year compulsory basic school is for all children between the ages of seven and sixteen years. If parents prefer, children may start school at six years of age.
Upper secondary school
Almost all of the pupils attending compulsory basic school continue directly to upper secondary school, and almost all of them complete their upper secondary schooling within three years (1993).
Upper secondary school is divided into 17 three-year national programmes, all of which are intended to provide a broad-based education and confer general eligibility for further studies in higher education. In addition to the national programmes there are also specially designed and individual programmes.
Adult education
Young persons are entitled to enter upper secondary school up to the age of 20. After this they can choose between various forms of municipal adult education. The National Schools for Adults (SSV) supplement adult education for those who cannot study at the place where they normally live. Parts of the tuition are in the form of distance learning. In addition, students visit the SSV schools at regular intervals for tutored instruction. There are National Schools for Adults in the cities of Norrköping and Härnosand.
Adult education in Sweden is extensive and based on a long tradition. It is provided in many different forms and under many different auspices, ranging from national or municipal adult education to labour market and staff training and competence development at work. The state school system for adults includes municipal adult education (komvux), adult education for the mentally handicapped (särvux), Swedish language teaching for immigrants (sfi) and the National Schools for Adults (SSV).
Komvux
Municipal adult education, (komvux), includes both basic and upper secondary adult education. Komvux started in 1968 for the benefit of adults lacking the equivalent of basic or upper secondary schooling. A new komvux curriculum came into force on 1 July 1994.
Basic adult education
Basic adult education corresponds to the nine-year compulsory basic school. This education is intended to provide a basis for participation in life in the community, working life and further study. The level at which studies are begun depends on each individual student’s initial qualifications. Studies are concluded when individual educational targets have been met. Students decide their own rate of progress, and in this way studies can be combined with employment or work experience.
Basic adult education can confer qualifications corresponding to nine years compulsory basic school. The compulsory school-leaving certificate awarded to adults contains passes in four core subjects: Swedish, or Swedish as a Second Language, English, Mathematics and Civics. Other courses and subjects can be included in such a certificate. The municipality has a duty to offer basic adult education to adults who have not achieved the compulsory basic school leaving certificate.
Upper secondary schooling
Adult upper secondary schooling and upper secondary schooling for young persons have the same syllabuses, and as of 1 July 1994 they share the same curriculum. Adult education is the equivalent of upper secondary school for young people, but the two are not identical. Municipal adult education is made up of courses and the courses in the different subjects follow on from each other. The adult students’ qualifications must be adequately supplemented to raise them to the same level as those of young persons. However, the courses provided may differ from those in regular upper secondary school as regards emphasis, content and scope. The students themselves determine the number and combination of subjects to be taken and the rate of progress. Many students take only one or two courses.
Supplementary education
Supplementary education is a form of education in its own right which can provide further training in a certain occupation or training for a completely new occupation. Most of these programmes take between six months and a year to complete and focus on subjects such as economics, computing or tourism.
Swedish for immigrants
Swedish for immigrants (sfi) is intended to provide knowledge of the Swedish language and Swedish society. Municipalities are obliged to offer sfi to newly arrived adult immigrants. Studies may be variously organised in different municipalities.
National schools for adults
Sweden has two National Schools for Adults, one in the city of Norrköping and one in Härnosand. The schools supplement adult education for those unable to find suitable komvux opportunities in the location where they live. Parts of the teaching are in the form of distance learning. In addition, the students visit the SSV schools at regular intervals for tutored instruction.
Folk high schools and adult education associations
Folk high school courses and the study circles and cultural activities organised by adult education associations are intended for all kinds of people and cover a wide variety of subjects. The Council for Popular Adult Education is responsible for the allocation of state grants and for evaluation of these forms of education.
Universities and colleges
Most universities and colleges in Sweden are state run. They exist in more than 20 different places around the country, offering a wide variety of individual courses and a number of longer study programmes.
Labour market training
Labour market training (AMU) is an instrument of labour market policy primarily intended as basic vocational education or further training for the unemployed. The Swedish parliament allocates money to the National Labour Market Board (AMS), which in turn distributes funding to county labour boards and employment offices. These purchase various training packages from, for example, komvux, commercial training companies or the AMU Group.
Staff training and competence development
Many workplaces have extensive training programmes for employees at all levels. In-house training of this kind may involve anything from practical vocational training to extensive theoretical studies. It may be carried out, for example, in association with universities and colleges, municipal commissioned training, AMU (labour market training) or with various commercial training companies.
Appendix 2
Higher education
The National Agency for Higher Education is a central agency responsible for matters relating to institutions of higher education. Its tasks include quality assessments, supervision, reviews, development of higher education, research and analysis, evaluations of foreign education and provision of study information. The Agency provides material that can be used to modify, improve and renew activities carried out within the higher education sector.
All universities and university colleges are public authorities that are directly accountable to the Government. The Government and Parliament are responsible for national education planning, while the institutions themselves are responsible for planning at the local level. The Agency’s role is to provide guidance data for decisions and assessments at both the national and local level.
Appendix 3 The employment office, aim and structure
Appendix 4
Internet applications
The following list contains some examples of applications on Internet. Most of them are from AMV, which as a part of the self-service system have developed a lot of different tools.
Job Bank
Employers can enter their own job vacancy advertisements in the Job Bank, and also edit and remove them. Employers also have the possibility of adding their own logotype and a link to their own home page, as well as presenting the enterprise, the workplace and/or the working unit concerned in words and pictures. They can also find out how many people have read his advertisement, simply by clicking the heading “Inspect adverts” and entering his corporate registration number.
Through the Job Bank, job seekers can access all job vacancies reported to the Employment Service. He or she can search by municipality or occupation, or else construct one - or several - personal search profile. The Job Bank is updated every day. It contains tens of thousands of job opportunities throughout Sweden. It also offers links to the web-sites of the employment services in Europe and North America.
Recruitment assistance
The Job Bank also has a function whereby employers can conduct an individualised recruitment dialogue with job applicants. This application aim at helping employers to sort large amounts of applicants automatically, thereby rationalising their administrative efforts to select candidates for interviews. Hopefully, in the longer term, it will also give us a more realistic picture of the actual selection-criteria’s used on the labour market, which in turn will help us provide even better labour market information and make our labour market programmes more effective.
The Job seeker Bank
The Job seeker Bank is an on-line service for firms wishing to recruit new employees. It contains presentations from job seekers in all fields of activity as everyone wishing to look for a new job can present himself or herself in the Job seeker Bank. Searchable words for education, skills and languages, for example, enable employers to find the right people without difficulty.
Other Internet applications
The Temporary Worker Bank can be used by job seekers looking for short-term jobs.
In the database "Image and Artist Bank", artists in search of commissions present reference pictures in colour and qualifications to potential buyers of their services.
The database "Occupational A to Z" contains descriptions of occupations, showing duties, training alternatives, employment prospects and rates of pay. A list of closely related occupations is also included.
"Education’s in Sweden" contains up-dated information on more than 3 500 education programmes and training courses all over Sweden, as well as information on different ways of financing studies.
Assessment tools. By answering questions about activities or about duties in various occupations, the user obtains an interest profile, which also includes hints on occupations worth considering.
Studera.nu is a website constructed on the National Agency for Higher Education’s initiative. The site will provide information about studies and careers. It became operational in February 2001.
The aim is to provide prospective Swedish students with a one-stop Internet site containing relevant information about higher education opportunities, as well as information about careers and postgraduate studies.
The system is based on co-operation between many organisations, of which institutions of higher education constitute the largest group. The National Board of Student Aid, the National Agency for Services to Universities and University Colleges and the National Labour Market Board are other major participants in the project.
The Swedish Confederation of Professional associations has a website with a lot of information around vocations. The address is .
Syo-guiden is one of the biggest sites in Scandinavia related to information and guidance. It contains a lot of links structured in different areas.
Future development of the Internet services
Several WAP services and palmtop communication facilities will be introduced, and the Job Bank will also be accessible on digital television.
The Employment Service will be able to post and administer booking schedules for various activities and courses, and the first interactive services on the employment offices’ own home pages will appear during 2002. Through “Activities”, customers will be able to put their names down and the handling officers will then be able to select participants for the activities concerned. Later on, employers will obtain information about training programmes nearing completion, so as to be able to recruit personnel from among the trainees.
An application enabling visitors to test their own levels of achievement in mathematics, Swedish and English started 2001. My Page is a new function for employers and job seekers. It offers the customers a personal archive, to facilitate the (optional) saving of such things as a personal CV, job advertisements, indications of interest, interesting applicants and applications etc. My Page will also include e-visits. My page will be introduced in the autumn 2002.
The Culture and Entertainment Bank is a placement service and presentation system for professionally active persons offering cultural and entertainment programmes in music, drama, dance etc.
A new tool and support on Internet for customers and guidance specialists are called “Choose a vocation”. In the program you get help to map your situation connected to interests, question around economy, living conditions etc. You’ll end up with a summary, which you can print out. The programme will also have a chat-function.
Appendix 5
The Activity Guarantee
The activity guarantee for unemployed was instigated August 2000. The activity guarantee is an employment policy program run by the jobcentre.
Why the activity guarantee is necessary
In many sparsely populated areas many people have been unemployed for a long time and find it difficult to return to the regular labour market. In the cities too, there are large groups who find it difficult to get jobs. Many people have got stuck in a vicious circle alternating between employment policy programs and the unemployment benefit fund. While many new jobs are appearing, many employers find it difficult to find personnel with the right skills. The activity guarantee provides the unemployed with better equipment with which to find work. The main objective of the activity guarantee is to reduce long-term unemployment, eliminate the long registration periods and take measures to reduce the number of re-registrations.
The activity guarantee is designed to considerably improve the unemployed person’s opportunities on the regular labour market. Each participant receives the support of a job centre supervisor in groups of 10-15 persons while having access to all the standard employment policy programs simultaneously. When starting the activity guarantee program the supervisor and the seekers of employment work out a job action plan. The plan specifies what the job centre can offer and what is required of the participants. E.g. participants might be required to exhibit geographical and professional adaptability. The difference from participation in a single employment policy program is that all the programs available are collected under the same roof and that the individual job action plan runs like a main thread throughout all activities.
One of the important foundation stones of the activity guarantee is that work shall be conducted in close co-operation with the government, municipalities, companies and parties on the labour market. To break the tendency towards long-term unemployment it is necessary for the entire municipality or district to get involved and fine new solutions and accessible routes to the labour market. Another important task is to work on finding jobs together with employers from both public and private sectors.
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