Sessions on Educational Guidance: “Coslada Guides 2021”
2021
Sessions on Educational Guidance: “Coslada Guides 2021”
For the Youth Information Service of the Municipality of Coslada, academic and professional guidance has always been a topic of special interest for offering support to the young population. At the start, we used to publish a booklet with general information about teenagers’ different academic and training options within the Spanish Educational System. Eventually, we realised that they do not need general information, which they can find on the internet or through their counsellors at school. Rather, they need to gain first-hand experience in professional life in order to gain more detailed information about what it is like to be the professional they want to become or are interested in becoming.
For this reason, we and the educational guidance departments of the seven secondary schools in town have organised several sessions in the last few years. The sessions aim to showcase different career pathways so that students can learn first-hand the training paths and the reality of working in different professions. First, we carry out a survey aimed at high school students. The idea is to find out which academic degrees and/or careers spark more interest among them. Then, based on these results, we schedule several sessions with working professionals and teachers on the studies and professions selected. At the sessions, we talk about daily life in a given profession, what are the training requirements, what competencies are needed, what are the difficulties involved, what are the labour opportunities, etc.
The speech has an experiential perspective to create an open and frank dialogue between speakers and young people, thus to encourage them to ask what they need to know.
In these sessions, we gather professionals with different backgrounds to give young people a glimpse of what they may become in the future. In other sessions, we include group speakers working in the same field and doing complementary tasks.
Another criteria we take into account is gender. We give visibility to women in positions traditionally occupied by men and vice versa. The idea is to encourage young women to overcome many of the prejudices that usually come into play and determine their academic choices. We also focus on new careers that do not spark their interest because they are not acquainted with them, but which offer promising professional opportunities. We want students to discover these new possibilities.
In these sessions, an average of 150 professionals, including university and vocational training teachers, have participated. They provided testimonials, as well as crucial and helpful information to our young students to help make well-informed decisions about their professional future. Further, more than 400 students each year have the opportunity to participate in these sessions, which we are able to upgrade based on the proposals and evaluations obtained after each edition. In 2021, the sessions become virtual, and we expect to get equal or better results.
Other topics on which we offer guidance are the labour market situation, so that they know in advance which sectors will have more job opportunities. We also provide workshops to manage exam anxiety and briefings to guide families who play a crucial role in supporting their children in choosing their studies.
Mar Cruz
Informadora- Orientadora Juvenil Ayuntamiento de Coslada
