Strengthening intersectoral collaboration in career guidance between the employment and training corporation and the educational sector

Abstract

This study attempts to investigate the level of intersectoral collaboration within the area of career guidance between the Employment and Training Corporation (ETC) and the local Educational Sector. Section A starts with an exploration of the concept of intersectoral collaboration and delves into why such collaboration would be beneficial to the area of career guidance. The second chapter of this section seeks to identify preconditions for effective intersectoral collaboration and how such conditions are translated within the area of guidance. Section B explains the rationale behind the methodology adopted in the following section, Section C, which investigates the area under study through a set of qualitative interviews. A set of semi-structured interviews were carried out with fifteen key players, five from the ETC and ten from the Educational Sector. Participants' collaborative experiences are categorised on the basis of modalities within two main sub-sectors: the Secondary and Post-Secondary sectors. Examples of each modality are given, together with participants' positive and negative interpretations. This section also has a chapter on lessons on collaboration learnt by participants, another on models of good practice identified by participants and one on collaborative proposals suggested by participants. In the fourth and final section the author discusses the findings and reflects on the way forward, referring in some detail to two foreign models of collaboration in the process.