A NEW partnership between education and business is needed if the challenge of guidance in the information society is to be met, delegates at yesterday's conference on Guidance in the Information Society in Malahide, Co Dublin, were told.
Mr Michael McDonnell, director of the Institute of Personnel and Development (IPD), said a much closer liaison between guidance professionals and human resource managers was required. It was a daunting fact that, in 10 years' time, 80 per cent of today's technology would be obsolete and unless there was a constant updating of skills, more and more workers ran the risk of becoming unemployable, he said.
"We believe that all full time further or higher education courses, including university courses, should incorporate, or be followed by, an appropriate work introduction programme.
The Minister for Education, Ms Breathnach, said her vision for guidance in the information society in Europe was one where all the elements necessary for guidance practitioners to make a significant contribution to the new roles required of them were in place at the same time. These elements were equipment, software, training and support.
She said guidance was now accepted in every democratic society as a right, as a force for equality and for the dignity of the person. It is far from being just a labour market tool. It follows, therefore, that the power of information technology in its application to guidance must strengthen and not weaken that principle," said Ms Breathnach.
Delegates at the conference, which was organised by the National Centre for Guidance in Education, with the support of the European Commission and the Department of Education, were told that each of Italy's 15,000 schools will have multimedia work stations for teachers and a considerable number of multimedia desktops for students.
Ms Ros Leenhouts, director of vocational and adult education at the Dutch Ministry of Education, said that the task of schools to provide career guidance was laid down in legislation. "We have adopted new curriculums for primary and secondary education in which guidance is an explicit part of the attainment targets," she said.