Reorganizing employment counselling as part of the newly established public employment service

in Georgia

Tibor Bors Borbely-Pecze, Ph.D.King Sigismund University, Budapest WED, 16th of November 2016, Room No. #4

Rationale

Key functionalities of Public Employment Services (PES), such as a) job-brokering, b) providing labour market information, c) administrating labour market adjustment

programmes, d) administrating unemployment benefits (Thuy et al. ILO, 2001:17)

These also mean guidance

Core competences of employment counsellors (DG EMPL, PES Network)

Lukasz Sienkiewicz Core competences in PES …. P2P Dialogue Discussion Paper, June 2013

“As a consequence, the counselling and guidance elements in the job of employment counsellors are strengthened, leading to a job profile that is a combination of a broker, counsellor, social worker and administrator.” (PES to PES Dialogue, 2013:20)

Association Agreement between Georgia and EU (2014)

• Article #349` c) of the AA described the following; “promoting active labour market measures and efficient employment services, as appropriate, to modernise the labour markets and to adapt to labour market needs of the Parties;`

Guidance and Counselling in Georgia

• Post USSR state with a strong intention for central planning

• Since 2000`s even stronger libertarianism approach in policy design

• In 2006 closed down the PES • No body for employment counselling since that even not

in the school system • No professional training, lack of vocabulary and lack of

tools • 2014 Resolution of the Government of Georgia on

Guidance and Counselling SYS developments

Lifelong Guidance definitions EU and Georgia

EU definition on lifelong guidance‘A range of activities (examples include information and advice-giving, counselling, competence assessment, mentoring, advocacy, teaching decision-making and career management skills) that enables citizens of any age and at any point in their lives to identify their capacities, competences and interests, to make educational, training and occupational decisions and to manage their individual life paths in learning, work and other settings in which these capacities and competences are learned and/or used.’ (EC resolution 2004) Georgian definition on lifelong vocational guidance and orientation ‘Lifelong vocational counseling and career planning development connect to each other: (1) human resources and a possibility of productive application of human resources; (2) the labour market and a possibility to meet the requirements of the labour market; (3) employer and job-seeker; (4) profession and (future) professionals; (5) educational opportunities and applicants. Lifelong vocational counseling and career planning serve to state interests on the one hand and individual interests of each person on the other hand.’ (Resolution of the Government of Georgia, #721, December 2014)

Same old music has been going on?

• #1 Clear definitions of the European/ global terminologies were not negotiated between the sides before the Association Agreement was signed, or at least at the point when its implementation started. For example, the meaning of PES, LLG, ALMPs where not clearly defined.

• #2 Concerning career guidance and employment counselling existing competency lists (e.g. IAEVG 2003, CEDEFOP 2009, PES to PES Dialogue, 2013, NICE 2015 …) of such a professionals were not used to map the way of the government order in Georgia.

• #3 The adaptation process might be too fast, and a word-by-word translation from usually English to Georgian is not necessarily interconnected with the development of the Georgian definition and the adaptation of these new definitions by the Georgian professionals,

• #4 The concept of career guidance and employment counselling in a region which was under Persian and Russian rule for centuries, and the development of the free market including the labour and educational market was limited or almost impossible for a long time, the above defined terminologies have a different meaning and are difficult to adapt. … and also laissez faire / libertarianism approach-based economic policy is well accepted.

Thank you!