Objectives & Themes

Objectives

Strategic Objectives

Build a shared regional understanding of the concept, scope, and role of career guidance and career development in educational institutions.

Present international frameworks and current practices in the region, and identify the practices that can be further developed and scaled up.

Collect and document the input of experts, practitioners, and policymakers, and turn it into a professional basis for the first draft of the regional framework.

Propose the components of the regional framework, including practitioner competencies, service quality standards, ethical standards, quality assurance mechanisms, and other relevant elements.

Strengthen the multi-stakeholder dialogue on quality career guidance in the region.

Themes

Four Main Themes

Theme 1

The Institutional Role of Educational Institutions: A Systemic Approach to Career Guidance

This theme looks at career guidance as a responsibility of the whole institution. Based on the Psychology of Working Theory, access to decent work depends on contextual barriers such as economic and social constraints and students' skills, and not only on students' choices. Therefore, schools, universities, and TVET institutions have a role in reducing these barriers and building students' career adaptability. Drawing on the Gatsby Benchmarks (Holman, 2014), the theme will discuss what this role looks like in practice and how it can be adapted to the MENA context throughout the student learning journey.

Theme 2

Experiences and Practices Across the Region

Case studies from different countries in the region will present real models and answer practical questions: how career guidance is delivered in schools and universities, which education-to-work programmes are offered and who is responsible for them, which standards are used, how service providers are trained, what roles ministries and labour market institutions play, and what the main challenges and lessons learned are.

Theme 3

Practitioner Competencies and Qualifications

This theme asks who provides career guidance services in schools and universities and what competencies they need. It also looks at the available training, certification, and continuing professional development (CPD) mechanisms, how service quality is supervised, and how far career practitioners in schools and universities are connected to the labour market.

Theme 4

Quality Standards for Career Guidance Services in Educational Institutions

This theme reviews national and international standards for delivering career development services in educational institutions, taking into account the regional context and digital transformation. It discusses how competency, ethical, and implementation standards can be applied and monitored, as well as the standards needed for education-to-work programmes in the different types of educational institutions.

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