The need for qualified experts, who work in different fields and difficulty levels inside career guidance, is apparent among the following groups:

• Practitioners at specialized institutions, who deal with career guidance, and private career counsellors;
• Managers and the staff in the centres providing career guidance for students;
• School counsellors;
• Teachers and educators;
• Youth workers;
• Parents.

All these profiles require certain knowledge and experience at various levels. However, at the time there is no systematic training available for these profiles in Slovenia.

In our organization we are providing workshops for school counsellors and students in their final year of secondary education. We notice certain indicators that obviously show the need for better training of school counsellors. Students have little and limited information on possibilities of study and career. Some schools are reluctant in deciding to include other organizations in providing career guidance, although they themselves do not provide these services. Therefore there is apparently some fundamental mistrust on one hand and unawareness of different possibilities on the other. The experts who intend to work in the field of career guidance, have to be open towards new knowledge and inclusion of other experts, who can provide help where needed.

During their study, students usually do not give much thought about their future career path. However, this is not solely their fault. The faculties in Slovenia (with 2 exceptions) have no systematically organized career guidance for students.

Youth workers often do not realize their role in the field of career guidance. Even if they are aware of it, they only have limited possibilities of where and how to develop required knowledge and competences.

There are no trainings and professional meetings in this field, or they at least are not known to wider professional public. Most of activities in this field are carried out by the non-governmental sector.
 
In the formal education only one subject in the Adult education programme at the Faculty of Arts and one subject in the Human resources management programme at the Faculty of Social Sciences deals with career guidance. This is by far not enough.

Reasons:

• Career guidance for all groups, except the unemployed, was outsourced from the ESS – there are currently no institutions that would take care of the development of this field in Slovenia. The processes for establishment of such institution are too slow. No one knows exactly what is going on in this field and who’s responsibility it is;
• Personal counselling is underrated in Slovenia in general. People do not like to undertake counselling, and they are not prepared to pay for it;
• The field is too heavily oriented towards psychology: many still believe that only psychologists are suitable for career counsellors and they are suitably trained already.

Consequences:

• Wasted human potential; the youth does not have enough help at their disposal that would guide them on their career path and to allow them to set their career in such a way that they could use their potential maximally and grow personally;
• The base of experts who think actively and help create the place for career guidance is too small;
• As there are no study programmes in this field, there is also no research and lack of expert publications and materials.

Possible solutions:

• Establishment of an undergraduate and/or postgraduate career guidance programme;
• Various tenders should support the preparation of trainings in the fields of career guidance, research projects and expert literature publishing;
• Regular professional meetings for experts who work in this field, supported and co-financed by the government.