The National Association of Careers and Guidance Teachers (NACGT) have produced a briefing paper ‘What Do Careers Co-ordinators Do?’ which is available to download here. The paper explains the main purpose of the role of the Careers Co-ordinator which is to:
“Ensure that pupils and students receive effective careers education and guidance in order to help them plan and manage their current and future progression through learning and into work.”
Key tasks of the Careers Co-ordinator in a school include:
Providing strategic vision and direction for CEG
Planning programmes of CEG
Delivering CEG
Continuously improving CEG
The Changing Role of the Careers Co-ordinator
NICEC (The National Institute for Careers Education and Counselling) have recently published a paper entitled ‘Leading and Managing Careers Work in Schools: the changing role of the careers co-ordinator’. The paper was written in an attempt to bring some clarification to the role of a Careers Co-ordinator after research suggested that different people in schools view the role differently. Tutors see Careers Co-ordinators as organisers of specific activities; Head Teachers see them as leaders and managers; Careers Co-ordinators see themselves as networkers and co-ordinators of programmes. Thus, there may be a need to not only refocus the role, but also to redefine and reconfigure it in relation to other middle leadership and management positions in the ever-changing context of careers work in schools.
The report emphasises “the need...for the Careers Co-ordinator….to work with the senior management team to set policy priorities for careers work, to support those involved in providing careers education and careers guidance, to keep the programme under review, to evaluate the provision and to develop careers work. This is more than co-ordination; it is leadership and management.”
To see this paper visit here. It will be useful to those schools who are currently reviewing the role of the Careers Co-ordinator as the paper lists 12 functions for the role today, which could constitute the basis of a job description.
