1. Careers work in school: evidence from the Netherlands
Frans Meijers
London
12 June 2017

2. Teachers responsible
Since 1965 teachers are responsible for careers guidance in schools
Careers guidance outside schools is gradually disappeared due to marketisation
Most youngsters (or their parents) can’t afford to ‘buy’ career services

3. Matching of student with job/education is dominant
A good choice is an informed choice
Information about self (psychometric tests, portfolio’s, personal development plans)
Information about the labour market
Underlying assumption: individuals behave like rational actors

4. Two problems with this approach
Humans aren’t rational actors
The ‘disappearance’ of labour

5. Determinants of (career) decision making
1. Experiences (>60%)
Personal experience
Experience of relevant others (especially parents)
2. Rumours
3. Contamination by mass media
Attribution of incorrect characteristics to a profession or education
4. Objective information
Only of interest after a choice is made

6. The ‘disappearance’ of labour
Work has migrated from residential to
industrial areas
Many occupations disappeared
1976: 5,500 occupations and 2,000 vague job titles
1998: 1,178 occupations and 25,000 vague job titles
School as a pedagogical reserve
Based on (a) theory before experience and practice and (b) simple learning situations before complex ones.
Extended youth phase: being young = having fun

7. Decision-making as a learning process
Goal: more self-directiveness (employability, career resilience, optimism)
Needed: meaning-oriented instead of reproductive learning
Meaning-oriented learning is attaching personal meaning to information

8. A learning environment for self-directedness
real-life problems (and not by professional requirements) are the starting point of the career-learning process,
followed by
a dialogue in which meaning is attached by the student to his/her experiences

9. Dialogues are missing 73% to 24 % about 3 % with

10. Why is dialogue so difficult for teachers?
A lack of experience (learning = teaching) and, therefore, lacking skills
All routines in schools are designed to enable reproductive learning
Meaning-oriented learning causes more insecurity and anxiety than reproductive learning among all participants (building a bridge while walking over it)

11. What is needed in schools for career learning in the 21st century? (1)
·        a dialogue among teachers: collective learning
(Lodders & Meijers, 2017 in British Journal of Guidance and Counselling)
·        a dialogue between teachers and their managers
(Draaisma, Meijers & Kuijpers, 2017 in British Journal of Guidance and Counselling)
·        transformative leadership and a division between
‘strategic’ (top down) and ‘tactical’ (bottom up) policy

12. What is needed in schools for career learning in the 21st century? (2)
collaboration with employers on the basis of shared responsibility
Shared responsibility is more than offering placements and/or giving information by employers.
Shared responsibility in three phases:
It starts with guiding students in placements together
It continues with developing together learning situations
It ends with innovating together