SIMHE Flash News 2: Increasing collaboration with experts in the University of Jyväskylä

Photo credit "chopsokey" October 12, 2011 on Flickr

Last Monday 30th of May, the SIMHE-UniPID team had an interesting meeting with Raimo Vuorinen, Jaana Kettunen and Outi Ruusuvirta-Uuksulainen, from the Lifelong guidance team of the University of Jyväskylä.

The team coordinates the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network ELGPN and the website of the Finnish Centre for Lifelong Guidance Expertise (eVOKES). Their areas of expertise include the use of technologies for the delivery of guidance and counselling.

Lifelong guidance is a cross-sectoral activity found in schools, vocational education and training (VET), adult education (AE), higher education (HE), and public employment services (PES). It supports a wide spectrum of profiles from workers, to immigrants; therefore it contributes to a wide range of policy aims convening intervention to help individuals to manage their navigation in life, learning and work (ELGPN, 2015)

During our discussion we had some feedback from the Lifelong guidance team about the SIMHE activities, we received advice about the challenges that the SIMHE team has when delivering the guidance and counselling to prospective students via skype, specially when the prospective students do not have a fast and stable internet connection. In the future we could for example try to promote the provision of better infrastructure for the delivery of the services online in the reception centers. .

We also learned about the European Lifelong Guidance Policy Network instruments released last year. The materials developed by the ELGPN explore the most important debates in the field and their guidelines for the implementation of policies and systems for the European Union member states. We became aware that our services can be improved with the advancements that have already been done under the tight collaboration of the member states in different fields, and in this particular case in the field of lifelong guidance.

Finally, we stressed the importance of institutional collaboration for the SIMHE project sustainability, where the network with other professionals will improve our practices and the transcendence of the project. In the long run it is crucial that the HE`s themselves can take responsibility also of the guidance and counselling of these prospective immigrant students, not just of the students that have already managed to enter the system.

Melissa Gonzalez-Soto

Intern

 1) ELGPN Tool No. 5: Strengthening the Quality Assurance and Evidence-Base for Lifelong Guidance page 9 http://www.elgpn.eu/publications/browse-by-language/english/ELGPN_QAE_tool_no_5_web.pdf/