Is a career-oriented school in Ukraine real? What will this model change?
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Imagine a school from which a child leaves with a clear understanding of development directions. The child knows himself well enough, his strengths and weaknesses, his desires and makes a conscious decision about where exactly he wants to work. She knows the challenges of this or that profession, the opportunities in this profession, understands the situation on the labor market now and what it may be in a few years, confidently enters this profession, knowing that there will definitely be a job. She correlates her choices with her inclinations and character, not choosing what is prestigious for society or family and is super happy because of it.
If you look at it globally, introducing a career-oriented model in the educational sphere will greatly simplify the work of the State Employment Service in matters related to the normalization of the situation on the labor market in war and post-war times. Under such a scenario, the unemployment rate in our country becomes lower, and the labor migration processes in the country become more controlled, because most young people will continue to work in Ukraine, seeing prospects and stability here.
Therefore, the NGO Center “CSR Development” in partnership with the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine within the framework of the USAID “Dream and Act” Program developed the “Career-oriented school” model. “Career-oriented school” (KOSH) – this is a pilot model developed by the Career Hub working group with the participation of the Ministry of Education and Culture. Currently, the process of its testing and calibration is underway – conducting pilot certifications in schools in different regions of Ukraine.
The purpose of the “Career-oriented school” certification is to stimulate the process of changes in the school education system, to create opportunities for career orientation of schoolboys and schoolgirls, which will be implemented according to uniform standards in schools of different levels – primary education (grades 1-4), basic secondary education (grades 5-9), specialized secondary education (grades 10-12) – in all regions of Ukraine, to teach children to choose a future profession and build a career in Ukraine, to help society solve problems related to oversaturation of personnel in in some areas and “personnel hunger” in others. A career-oriented school is also a systemic interaction of the school with parents and persons who replace them, employers, the local community, institutions of professional, higher and vocational higher education, and other stakeholders.
About the features of the model
The model offered to educators is a system of measures to improve the work of each individual school in helping each child in matters related to career guidance. The goal is to ensure that the child, regardless of which school he attends and where he lives – in a big city or village – gets more opportunities to consciously choose a future profession. While developing this model, we singled out 10 criteria that schools should focus on when forming programs in the field of career guidance.
Next – about some of the criteria.
Individual approach
The child is the “cornerstone” in this program. We are trying to form the KOSH model so that each child receives enough individual attention to their own needs and interests, the opportunity to analyze themselves independently and model their own career future.
Diversity
Each child is special, and in order for him to find useful information and class opportunities for himself, taking into account interests and age characteristics, learning abilities, it is necessary to diversify the field of career guidance, classroom and extracurricular activities.
Integration and systematic approach to work
It is important that the director of the school oversees the direction of career guidance, because this is a person who broadcasts a certain position, inspires, stimulates, orients teachers regarding the importance of helping children in choosing professions.
It is no less important that the work in this direction is planned, complex and continuous, starting from the first grades, so that the child gets to know the world of professions from an early age.
Involvement of the entire teaching community
There are no such cases when one specialist covered all the needs related to career guidance. Only the coordinated work of all specialists can move a huge layer of work.
What is it about? Example, primary school: it depends on the first teacher how exactly the children will get to know the professions. It can be in the form of a game or through acquaintance with parents and their professions, through pleasant excursions.
IN high school the range increases, because this is the age when you can explore certain abilities and characteristics of children’s character and when the child prioritizes the types of activities that he likes. At this stage, she expects a lot of support from her home school, which should give her freedom and enough information to analyze options. At the same time, teachers within each school discipline should explain in which professions academic knowledge can be applied. This will give students motivation, because very often at this age they ask the question: why is this for me and how will I apply it in the future? Such a close connection of academic knowledge from the school curriculum to future professional realization helps children to be more active and better see their own successes and prospects.
It is also necessary today to involve a social teacher and a school psychologist.
Work with parents
In career guidance, it is important to enlist the support of parents, because often the family is the bearer of certain prejudices about professions. Accordingly, we lay down certain points related to how to inform parents about their child’s career development opportunities, we offer activities related to combating stereotypes regarding professions, in particular, gender stereotypes.
Here it is important to give parents tools and knowledge about how to properly support children in the process of career orientation, what should be paid attention to. Parents, in turn, also need help and support in the process of choosing a profession for their child. We all know that this process is not only stressful for students, and it is important to give parents timely information about the admissions campaign, help them navigate the software that is currently used to track their child’s grades, submit documents, etc. This should reduce the level of tension in the family.
Partnership of schools with business and employers
A very important element of the future model of career guidance is to maintain contact with local business, to invite local enterprises and employers to the school to meet with schoolchildren. This will provide an understanding of the career opportunities situation in their region of residence.
What it can be: internship or summer practice programs, creation of temporary jobs for schoolchildren (this is a kind of test drive of the profession), where, with the consent of their parents, children could work in their free time, which will add confidence.
About the “gentle” integration of KOSH into Ukrainian education and its prospects
This model actually has many stakeholders. There are schools and teachers who work in them, there are parents of students and the students themselves, there is the Ministry of Education and Science of Ukraine, institutes that develop materials and monitor the quality of education, are responsible for digitalization. There are also employers and entrepreneurs of various levels throughout Ukraine. If all these stakeholders take at least one small step towards this reform (new model), then we will immediately get a big progress.
What are the steps?
On the part of the school:
- implementation of approaches to the formation of an action plan in the field of career guidance;
- holding events at the class, parallel, school level;
- work with parents;
- providing information about available professions that require the use of certain academic knowledge.
From parents: to respond to teachers’ requests to come to meetings and talk about their own profession, offering it to their own children and their classmates. If there is an opportunity, conduct an excursion for children at work, organize a small practice there, which will give young people the opportunity to see the inner “kitchen” of professions.
On the part of employers: interact with educational institutions, come to meetings with young people, organize tours of enterprises, productions, give practice. Do not be afraid to work with young people without experience, give them the opportunity to test themselves and their own skills. Maybe one of them is actually the perfect candidate for one of the positions, but you won’t know unless you try.
Olga LuschykCareer Hub expert on the development of the “Career-oriented school” model, especially for “UP. Life”
Publications in the “View” section are not editorial articles and reflect exclusively the author’s point of view.
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