The following examples illustrate ways that career education helps develop students’ key competencies.
The key competencies managing self, participating and contributing, and relating to others are directly and explicitly linked to career education and guidance. When schools provide opportunities to address these competencies in a career education framework, the content and context are real and meaningful.
Managing self
Consider developing this competency through providing students with opportunities to:
- develop their awareness of their interests, qualities, skills and cultural and personal values in relation to possible pathways beyond school
- develop decision-making skills in relation to school and further education options
- develop realistic personal pathway plans and monitor their own progress.
Participating and contributing
Consider developing this competency through providing students with opportunities to:
- connect with people in the community to explore the mechanisms of the workplace and organisations
- participate and work in community organisations
- study a workplace in terms of its sustainability as a social, cultural, physical and economic environment
- research workplace rights and responsibilities
- work within teams and groups in career-related projects.
Relating to others
Consider developing this competency through providing students with opportunities to:
- seek and undertake work experience
- explore the importance of cultural awareness and ethnic practices in workplaces
- understand how decisions about work and life will involve and affect others, including family, whānau and friends
- develop interviewing and other face-to-face communication skills.
Making sense of information, experiences and ideas about career pathways and career development is an important aspect of career education. The key competencies thinking and using language, symbols and texts underpin and can be developed within career education activities.
Thinking
Consider developing this competency through providing students with opportunities to:
- relate prior learning and experiences outside of school to current learning and future work
- make considered decisions about future learning or work
- ask questions and challenge assumptions and perceptions about themselves and possible career pathways.
Using language, symbols, and texts
Consider developing this competency through providing students with opportunities to:
- develop their knowledge and understanding of the language of work, for example, to describe and name their skills
- explore the place of ICT in finding out about career opportunities and presenting information on these
- identify useful career information resources and interpret information appropriately
- develop communication skills by providing information and ideas about themselves in writing and speaking.
Naming your skills is an important part of putting together a career identity. Remember that, for a young person, a belief in their competence NOW leads to a belief in their future competence. By naming the skills they are developing and voicing them in a way that they can understand, you can help them realise the ways in which they are achieving competence and becoming a useful adult. As they gather evidence of their competence, they see further possibilities for this in the future.
(Carpenter, 2008, p66)
Published on: 04 Aug 2009