The expert group has highlighted the following problems in the discussion:

The meaning and role of career guidance

• Flexibility of the labour market is becoming increasingly real in Slovenia. The education system cannot train young people for life-long performance of their work, because of the nature and the range of work changes. 
• The essential role of career guidance is to enable the youth to develop their competences for life-long planning and managing their career and life, therefore it should be systemically included in the curriculum at all levels and adapted to individual levels. The content is the key knowledge and competences in the context of life-long learning that allow an individual to autonomously manage their lives.
• Career planning is not completed by finding employment or completing an education programme. The studies guide the individual towards the goal, but deciding between different options goes on for the entire life. In primary school, perhaps a part of career guidance, recognizing oneself is set on a slightly wider basis, but is later more specifically set. For example, an economist working in the field of bookkeeping or finances is a wholly different person than someone who works in the field of sales but has the same education. 
• From the viewpoint of recognizing the role and importance of career guidance it is especially worrying that the employers expect quick solutions and wish to employ people who are already familiar with the work. The content of career guidance does not provide instantaneous results, but instead long-term results. In the public, especially among the politicians and employers, the awareness needs to be raised that career guidance has an important long-term effect, both for the individual and for the employers. The arising question is: how can this awareness be raised and how can we prove the effects of career guidance from the viewpoint of users and employers.
• In legislation and development guidelines a change of the attitude towards career guidance can be sensed. The new position of politics is emerging that believes that career guidance can change the mindset and thinking of the unemployed and thus contribute importantly to their inclusion in the labour market. Career guidance is recognised as an inexpensive programme that could with systemic sanctions reduce unemployment rate. In this context, the professional role and competence of counsellors is problematic, therefore it is essential to establish a professional body that will attend to education of counsellors among other tasks. In the existing situation the counsellors work under pressure and find it difficult to perform their tasks without expert background. If the counsellor does not follow the values where the individual is important and not the system, then his work is reduced to mere administrative tasks.
• In the European states different models of career guidance provision or its integration into curriculum exist.

Example 1:
In Canada career guidance is provided in four-year secondary schools in the form of a three year module. The provision of the programme is undemanding and can be offered by counsellors who are acquainted with the use of interactive exercises. The students realize their interests, skills, features, etc. through group-work as well as individual work.

Example 2:
In Finland there is a programme of career guidance offered in the form of 60 classes that can be completed by the individual in three years. The results are not graded, the only criterion is whether the programme was completed successfully or unsuccessfully. The content is oriented towards learning about oneself.

Career education

• When considering inclusion of career guidance into curriculum, we have to make a strong distinction between different levels - primary school, secondary school, university.
• A very important part of career guidance is getting to know oneself. In the primary school, the students start learning individual subjects, and their content is becoming unfamiliar to the individual. Teaching and learning is performed on external level (the teacher, for example, explains the subject, the student has to learn it and prove what was learned), the content is not meaningful enough in relation to individual's interests.
• In the grammar school it can be noticed that by carrying out the demanding work methods, the students receive much more for themselves than at the primary school level before. Despite that, the subjects are still not set for students to learn about themselves through learning materials – their advantages and drawbacks, skills, social competences, etc. Besides the existing curricular content, there should be a programme that would connect this content and help students combine it into a comprehensive unit. There are no conditions for such work in schools. There is a problem with the time of career guidance provision as well as respect and inclination of students and teachers towards this work. 
• The provision of career guidance is limited by passivity, i.e. the attitude of students towards the school work and their unpreparedness to actively discover and learn about themselves with the help of the school counsellor. Such mindset arises from the nature of the school system that puts the individual into a passive role of receiving and reacting. Because there is no time allocated for career guidance, such mindset cannot be changed, because such type of work demands procedural orientation.
• In schools we often forget that in career guidance we are not only dealing with cognitive problems but also with subconscious, the feeling, the things that cannot be revealed easily. The counsellor helps to transfer subconscious into conscience, which is most easily done in groups. Giving information and material is not enough. A programme is necessary.

Examples of good practice

• In 2000 as a part of Phare programme in Velenje School Centre a project was carried out, on the basis of which the programme "Pika na i (Dot on i)" was created. The students had access to information in different printed and on-line sources, and even more importantly, access to workshops on development of job seeking skills, on learning about oneself, on learning about the labour market, etc. were created. The students were very content with the programme. The workshops and certain content are still included in our work.
• At the Vič grammar school the school counselling service organized a programme, in which the individuals learn about themselves through managing of a portfolio.

Provision of career guidance

• In Slovenian expert circles there is a predominant erroneous belief that some European countries have no counselling services, because they exist under different names and also have a slightly different function in education institutions. Counsellors, for example, provide workshops for students with behavioural problems. In certain countries several counsellors are employed who have different roles, among which development function cannot be found, which is one of most important tasks of counsellors in Slovenia. The counsellors elsewhere also have different education level or have completed different number of years of education.
• The practical experience shows that with the help of workshops young people can be encouraged to participate more actively in the achievement of their set goals. 
• The difference between career guidance workshops and school classes is that workshops entice their activity, while during classes they most commonly play a passive role. The workshops encourage young people to think about themselves, their wishes, interests, goals, etc. The problem is that these workshops are only of limited duration.
• A special place in career guidance provision in schools should also be reserved for teachers, who should strive to make education content more meaningful by connecting it with practice and through cooperation with experts, who work in a certain professional field.