The importance of career education
Every young person should be provided with the best possible opportunities to transition successfully from school to further education, training or employment.
Career education assists students to reflect on their ambitions, interests, strengths and abilities. It helps them to have a greater understanding about career options, pathways, the labour market and employment, and to relate this to what they know about themselves.
Comprehensive career education aims to teach students to plan and make decisions about work and learning. Career education provides information about the labour market and about educational opportunities and supports students to use this information. Information needs to be made accessible to students by organising it, systematising it, and making it available when and where students need it.
A contemporary school career education plan is essential for all Australian schools to ensure they are meeting the career development needs of their students within a rapidly changing and evolving world of work.
About the self-assessment tool
Successful transition through school and on to further education, training and employment requires students to be provided with high quality information as well as access to suitably qualified career development practitioners to assist them in this process.
Students need to develop a knowledge and understanding of themselves in relation to the workforce and need to be aware of current labour market trends before making and following decisions about careers. Schools should consider the differing needs of particular student groups including Indigenous students.
This requires students to be able to consolidate the skills required for further learning as well as to develop employability skills through the course of their everyday learning at school.
This self-assessment tool has been designed to assist schools to consider the key elements of a contemporary career education program that meets the needs of its students. The self-assessment tool can be used to complement and enhance existing frameworks and resources.
The tool has been developed with the cooperation of the Career Industry Council of Australia (CICA) around the key elements for enhanced career education for students developed to support the
Preparing Secondary Students for Work framework.
CICA Registered Professional Career Development Practitioners have provided input and knowledge into the development of the online self-assessment tool.
Schools who are able to demonstrate a high level of achievement in each of the six key elements will be providing a school career education plan for their school community that meets international best practice and provides their students with high quality career education.
How it works
The self-assessment tool has been developed to be used by both experienced career practitioners and those new to career education in schools. School Principals and members of the School Leadership Team are also encouraged to complete the self-assessment tool.
On completion of the self-assessment, you will be able share your responses with others and reflect on these to identify priority action areas, areas with room for improvement and areas of high performance. A range of resources are provided for you to access to help plan and implement changes to improve and enhance career education at your school.
Getting Started
Create your user profile below and move through the self-assessment tool at your own pace. The estimated time for completion is around 30 minutes. Results can be saved at any point in time using the 'save and continue' button at the top of the screen. You will be prompted to provide an email address and a link to your results will be sent to that address. Responses can be changed at any point in time prior to generating the the final Summary Report.