Career Guidance Advent Calendar

The management of the Székesfehérvár Vocational Education and Training Centre encourages its schools to develop their career guidance activities, thus, in addition to their work supporting school work, they should also create new information and communication tools. The Centre also considers important that career guidance work enhances and facilitates cooperation between schools. Therefore, the developed career knowledge tool encourages getting to know not only the professions of a specific school, but also the entire training profile of the centre.

One of the main reasons for choosing the advent calendar form was that its topicality coincides with the school selection period among primary school students. In the Advent period, the topic of school choice is already at the center of the attention of the interested parties, and the need for advice also increases, at the same time, related information events are also multiplying. Taking into account that these events usually operate within tight time frames and are stationary, the Centre decided to develop an asynchronous online tool that can be accessed regardless of time or place. The use of the tool requires little time in each occasion, but at the same time it provides a continuous attachment to the topic and maintains interest. The latter is particularly important, because although there are many information sessions and the staff is well prepared for career guidance, many students do not devote enough time to orientation, so they miss out a lot of information.

Evaluating the communication and device usage habits of the target group, i.e. secondary school students, an IT platform and application was developed, that makes available important career knowledge elements on phones, tablets and any internet application. In addition, it shows the training places, forms and levels of training in the centre, and provides information about the most important characteristics and activities of the different careers that can be the basis for professional success. The small packs of information do not burden attention, but highlight the importance of career knowledge and related information.

The serious subject matter is accompanied by a playful format, keeping the activity light and enjoyable. The application allows those who miss a day to make up for the current answer, and to use the program even after the Advent period.

The game also includes prizes on the first try, and the questions of the prize draw could always be answered based on the information provided on the previous days.

In the 11 individual schools of the Centre many more professions are taught than the number of days during the Advent period, therefore the content of the calendar cannot cover all the activities. However, the content of the tasks was designed in such a way that each school was given two days, and on two more days important, general information were included in the calendar about the Centre, with many pictures and little text.

The asynchronous application works well and, importantly for sustainability, the technical system developed allows the content to be updated and adapted to events and campaigns.

This good practice formed part of the Hungarian Euroguidance Career Guidance Award forYouth 2022.