Guidance in Slovakia
Introduction
Guidance and counselling services have a long tradition in Slovakia. First counselling facilities have been established in late 1950’s and have developed to today’s network of counselling centers covering all ages and the whole variety of problem areas. Career and vocational guidance is also integral part of these services. When speaking about used and preferred approaches there is a development from static and psychometric vocational counselling to dynamic educational and integrated lifelong career guidance.
Career guidance in Slovakia is covered mainly by two sectors – educational sector and sector of labour, social affairs and family. Services organised under the regional governments or ministries are available to all groups of citizens and are free of charge. Although this area is a domain of state, there are some services offered by private sector and sector of NGO as well.
Within educational system there is a quite large network of guidance and counselling practitioners in different institutions inseparable part of whose job is to cooperate in helping pupils, students, parents and other educators to get acquainted with the world of education and employment. Teachers in position of educational counsellors, special educators and school psychologists (if available – school psychologists are not common in all schools) supply vocational counselling, guidance and informational services at schools. These experts closely cooperate with educational and psychological counselling centres. For pupils and students with disabilities there is a possibility to turn to special educational counselling centres.
In the organisational structure of Headquarter and Offices of Labour, Social Affairs and Family there are units serving as career guidance institutions mainly for adults. This particular help for those in search of work is offered by Counselling and Informational Centres. They are under administration of the Ministry of Labour, Social Affairs and Family.
Career guidance in Slovakia is provided mainly as
a part of more complex educational, psychological, counselling and
social services. As a result those who can be referred to as
guidance practitioners have education ranging from psychological,
pedagogical, andragogical to education in social sciences and
cumulate more functions (e.g. teacher, psychologist, social worker).
There are no specialized programmes offering education for guidance
practitioners at Slovak universities or other institutions of higher
education, even though students can choose some optional courses on
this topic.
Page last updated: 05 January 2009