Career Counselling and Vocational Guidance in Latvia

22/02/2010

Career Counselling and Vocational Guidance

Guidance in Latvia is shared between the Education and Labour market sectors:

► From primary through upper-secondary education both general and vocational schools provide careers education

► Careers education at schools is integrated into subject lessons and class lessons and can be a topic for project week activities and field trips

► No school staff member designated as a school guidance counsellor

► In the Labour market sector the State Employment Agency through its network of regional offices provides career guidance advice and counselling free of charge to persons starting from the age of 15

Career Counselling and Vocational Guidance in SEA

Provide group or individual career and/or psychological counselling, career guidance, identification of suitable work goals, information and help when searching for a job, job retraining and work trials.

Individuals are offered interest, aptitude, personality and psychometric testing, health profiling, role play, coaching and provision of information. Group activities involve consultations, seminars and lectures on career management issues, career motivation tests and interpersonal communication training.

Internet services include online career interest tests, information on careers and training opportunities, storage of CV and motivation letters, as well as responses to user questions by career guidance and/or psychological counsellors.

SEA develops methodology – prepares information resources, tests, questionnaires, inventories and other methodological materials for the career counsellors’ work.

Career Counselling and Vocational Guidance in SEA

Consultations by type

18052

21863

2346 2211

2008. year in 6 months 2009.year in 6 months

individual career consultations group career consultations

Career Counselling and Vocational Guidance in SEA

Career guidance is provided to all unemployed planned to be involved in active labour market measures, in order to identify their vocational relevance for a definite measure

80,7% of all registered unemployed were involved in any kind of career

counseling and vocational guidance services

22,035,2

23,4 27,7

57,5

80,7

2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 9 months 2009

% of registered unemployed and job seekers participating in career counseling and vocationalguidance

Measures to enhance competitiveness

Short courses, seminars, lectures and consultations offered to the unemployed in areas such as:

• communications skills, • networking • negotiation • interview skills• motivation • contractual working arrangement• individual consultations with psychologists, lawyers, credit specialists, social workers etc.

- in 2008 just over 70 000 unemployed participated in these measures and in the first half of 2009 nearly 90 000