Publication Type: Project / initiative

Държава: Bulgaria

The Career Skills Project helped thousands of users of all ages - from students to seniors - to improve their career management skills. It equips career counselors with ready-to-use free quality materials in 6 languages, targeted at 3 levels of learners. Thus, it supports the workforce to stay competitive and resilient in turbulent changes and provides evidence for future-looking career guidance policy.

Some of the key policy implications in the project impact report are:
• The topic of skills development and upgrade is becoming increasingly important globally. There is a large demand and interest in career skills development in all age groups – from students and young professionals to experienced seniors.
• The provision and offer of freely accessible online tools and digital resources need to be fostered and supported by national authorities.
• The Career Skills project approach proves to be very relevant by addressing simultaneously all interested target groups – from policy stakeholders to end users, and by combining different tools and resources about career skills development in one place.
• The project has created a solid base of resources on a number of key topics that are transversal. These efforts need to be sustained and upgraded by utilizing advanced technologies, however, it also requires continuing efforts in developing the digital skills of users, in order to fully benefit from these innovations.
• The Career Skills MOOC learner-centered approach proves to be effective for 96% of 568 users who participated in the piloting. The large diversity of offered training approaches makes it applicable for all target groups and levels of learners is and practical tasks. The MOOC utilizes various existing resources and materials which can be referred to as good practices. The Creative Common license enables other organizations and providers to step on these efforts and upgrade them.
• The challenge lies in the parallel efforts of many different stakeholders to work on similar topics within various platforms and tools, promoted at the same time. While end users can benefit from this variety, it is hard to convince organizations to offer their services on a common platform, with competitive resources. Still, the Network section could be sustained as a useful resource, where career guidance providers can freely promote their innovative tools and events.
• The feedback from career counselors and experts shows that there is a need to invest in the ongoing professional development and digital upskilling also of those who offer career guidance support. The amount of information, innovative methods, and the speed of technological change requires advisors to be better equipped with the capacity to offer online support, to be able to develop and apply more up-to-date digital tools, and to tackle challenges that emerge in the online environment. The efforts of national stakeholders need to be focused on offering more often and more practical training on digital skills for career counselors.
• The established national reference groups of professionals and experts have contributed to the quality and promotion of the results. These non-formal communities facilitate the exchange of know-how, information, and support within career guidance systems. It is of utmost importance to continue this synergy in the future.
• The Career Skills Platform needs to continue to grow on a European level. The large promotional campaign made by the partnership has attracted many stakeholders from more than 25 countries to the platform and involved key stakeholders, such as Euroguidance, universities, and active stakeholders in the career guidance arena.

Read the full report here - http://app.career-skills.eu/files/library/en/Career%20Skills%20Project_Impact%20Policy%20Report.pdf