Episode 66: Challenges and Opportunities for Career Guidance towards Sustainability (January 1, 2023)
Teruyuki Fujita (University of Tsukuba)
Happy New Year! I sincerely hope this year brings tranquility and peace to each one of you.
For me, last year was filled with many things to reflect on. One of them
is that I could hardly update this "Just Mumbling around Career Education"
series. So this year, I would like to make it my challenge to "write
anyhow, based on whatever topic is at hand." Well, I know I'm bound
to draw ridicule upon myself like "With these shoddy articles?",
but I confess that in the past, I often worried that the story composition
had room for improvement, or that the ending lacked a punch line until
I finally stopped updating the site. However, from now on, I will be writing
without grumbling.
✽
In this first entry, I would like to share with you the "IAEVG 2022 Communiqué" adopted at the IAEVG (The International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance) General Assembly held at the beginning of December last year.
It is customary for a communiqué to be adopted at the General Assembly
during each annual conference, and it is also customary for the Board of
Directors to prepare the draft. So a "first draft" must always
be prepared by one of the Board members. At last fall's online board meeting,
the president asked, "Would anyone be willing to write a draft 2022
Communiqué?" I couldn't bear the silence of everyone recalling "the
last time who was in charge of the draft?" I said, "I could try."
and that was the end of my luck. The decision was made immediately.
✽
The theme for the 2022 Conference is "COVID-19 and Digital transformation: Vocational Choice, Educational Prospects, and Employment Challenges." ...So mentioning the pandemic of COVID-19 and digital transformation in the Communiqué is a must. In addition, it needs to deliver a meaningful message to those who are involved in career guidance around the world, even if only slightly. I regretted that I said "I could try." but it was too late.
As you can imagine, the only way out of this situation was to just write
down ideas randomly and scramble to get them done. I was literally struggling
with this and that, but there was a moment when the fog seemed to lift
and the initial idea came to the surface. That was when I decided to quote
a passage from Alain's About Happiness [Propos sur le bonheur], a favorite of mine since I was in high school: "Pessimism is due to the mood, optimism to the will.; Le pessimisme est d'humeur; l'optimisme est de volonté." After that, I was able to create a rough draft in about three hours
or so.
I sent the draft through the mailing list of the Board of Directors and received many new ideas and suggestions for revisions, and finally, the draft Communiqué was completed in British English. It was a valuable learning experience for me to see how native English speakers use witty and appropriate phrases and expressions, or how important to add new topics from a broader context to make them more appealing to readers. It was a series of fresh surprises, just like when I was on the newspaper team in high school and a senior member corrected the draft of the article that I wrote.
✽
In the original Japanese version of this "Episode 66," my provisional Japanese translation of the Communiqué is posted first, and then the original is quoted in its entirety. In this English version, the Japanese translation is skipped.
I earnestly hope that this Communiqué will give even a small push to those of you who are making efforts to promote career guidance around the world.
✽
IAEVG 2022 Communiqué
Challenges and Opportunities for Career Guidance towards Sustainability
in the Aftermath of COVID-19 and Digital Transformation
For nearly three years to date, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on people's daily and professional lives in every country and region on the globe. In addition, staggering technological advances, especially digital transformation, are bringing fundamental global changes to the way we live, work, and relate to each other. Amid this upheaval, we are witnessing the military invasion of Ukraine that began in February 2022 with the loss of tens of thousands of lives already. Moreover, we should be reminded that these profound contingencies have occurred during a tidal wave of global climate change, a grave crisis for all. We urgently need to reconsider our entire way of life, including our consumption and labour, to ensure sustainability for all creatures on this planet, - and that includes us. We are living in an age of disruption, and it is an unprecedented challenge to all of our knowledge, skills, solidarity, and resilience.
The aftermath of COVID-19 will not be the beginning of the "post-COVID-19" era. We are confronted with the question of how we can lead our lives humanely and develop our careers resiliently under "with-COVID-19" conditions that will persist in the future. At the same time, rapid and massive technological innovation has fundamentally changed the way we live and opened new career opportunities for us, while bringing the reality that robots and artificial intelligence are replacing much of the labour previously performed by humans, extending its major impact to middle-skilled jobs, even implying an era when humanity might become subservient to technology. We must also admit that such cutting-edge technological innovations accelerate the widening of social disparities. It is always the already privileged persons, groups, organizations, regions, and countries that are the first to benefit from sophisticated technologies. In those fortunate circumstances, the digital economy has created new incomes and more flexible and inclusive ways of working. However, a large portion of the world is not yet part of the digital economy because of the lack of investments in infrastructure, facilities, equipment, and education and training with appropriate career guidance. In particular women, youth, migrants, refugees, racial and ethnic minorities, persons with disabilities, those living in poverty, and other vulnerable groups remain marginalized.
Then, is our future a world filled with volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity, without a ray of hope?
The answer is a simple No. For example, we are facing a period of transformation called the "Fourth" Industrial Revolution. We should recall that the industrial revolutions in the past were always a threat to humanity at their inception. Perhaps the most typical example would be the Luddite movement that began in Nottingham in England and lasted from 1811 to 1816. It was started by craftsmen and labourers who feared the loss of their jobs due to the widespread use of machinery associated with the First Industrial Revolution. Although the British Parliament decreed that workers who destroyed machinery could be put to death, this did not immediately stop the Luddites. The First Industrial Revolution was an extreme threat to the people of the time. But for us, more than 200 years later, water power and steam engines are no longer the slightest threat. We have already overcome such threats three times. Experience suggests to us that a fourth time is also surmountable. As we transition to the Fifth Industrial Revolution or Industry 5.0, the interface between humans and technology brings a new era of innovation and challenge that will inevitably influence the nature of people’s career concerns, new employment opportunities, and mechanisms for service delivery.
The same can be pointed out from the history of humanity, which has fought and overcome various infectious diseases since the beginning of time, as well as from the history of the world of work, which has undergone numerous metabolic changes along with social transformations. "Pessimism is due to the mood, optimism to the will.; Le pessimisme est d'humeur; l'optimisme est de volonté." as the French philosopher, Alain said. For us, career guidance practitioners, researchers, and administrators, the top priority is to positively uphold the will to overcome threats, disruptions, and disparities, as well as the confidence that we can do so. Otherwise, our clients and students will not be able to leave bleak future prospects that are eroding their confidence and hope.
Against this background, we must provide career guidance and counselling to everyone, prioritizing the most vulnerable and marginalized, and through advocacy and collaboration across practitioners, researchers, administrators, and policymakers, we must seek solutions to realize peaceful, decent work for all. Furthermore, it is an essential task for us to contribute to the creation of a digital economy nourishing global environmental integrity as well as sustainable development that leads to flexible, inclusive working conditions with no one left behind. As the IAEVG Ethical Guidelines state in their Preamble, the IAEVG is committed to the global provision of educational and vocational guidance. All IAEVG members are required to recognize that vocational choices and career development have an impact that reaches beyond the individual, including responsibilities to families, communities, and the larger society and environment. The raison d'être of the IAEVG is being tested at a time when the world is facing profound turmoil.
https://iaevg.com/resources/Documents/Final%20Draft_2022%20Communique.cleaned.pdf
(Translated and uploaded on January 2, 2023)
Back Issues
Episode 65: The First Update of a New Start (September 24, 2022)
Episode 64: What's Beyond Learning, Ver.2 (December 29, 2021)
Episode 63: We Are Supposed to Be All Different and All Wonderful, Aren't we? (October 10, 2021)
Episode 62: The Results of 2021 National Assessment of Academic Ability Urges Career
Education Practices to Exercise Ingenuity (September 5, 2021)
Episode 61: Falling or Bridging between Two Chairs: Resuming Schools after Summer
Recess and Providing Countermeasures against DOVID-19 (August 22, 2021)
Episode 60: The significance of having "the perspective on the connections to
learning across the lifespan" (July 23, 2021)
Selected Back Issues: From Episode 1 to Episode 59
Episode 56: Career Education Needed "Now" and "Here" (May 16,
2020)
Episode 33: Is Your Future "Scary" or " Exciting"? (January 27,
2018)
Episode 29: Is Career Planning Illusory Nonsense? (November 5, 2017)
Episode 22: What on Earth are the "Basic and General Competencies"? (June 17, 2017)
Episode 14: Looking Back on the Journey over 18 Years of Career Education (January
29, 2017)
The original Japanese version of Just Mumbling around Career Education series:
【第65話】今後ともどうぞよろしくお願いいたします。(2022年9月24日)
【第64話】続: 学びの先にあるもの(2021年12月29日)
【第63話】みんなちがって、みんないいのに……(2021年10月10日)
【第62話】全国学力・学習状況調査の結果公表に寄せて(2021年9月5日)
【第61話】夏季休業後の学校再開と新型コロナウイルス感染症対策(2021年8月22日)
【第60話】「生涯にわたる学習とのつながり」を見通すことの意味(2021年7月23日)
【第59話】ないないづくし(2020年8月23日+2021年6月2日)
【第58話】OECD「Learning Compass 2030」が求める力(2020年7月12日)
【第57話】続:「今、ここ」でのキャリア教育(2020年6月14日)
【第56話】「今、ここ」でのキャリア教育(2020年5月16日)
【第55話】ロールモデル(2020年4月11日)
【第54話】キャリア教育の出番です(2020年2月1日)
【第53話】係活動・当番活動(2020年1月11日)
【第52話】新学習指導要領の前文を改めて読む(2019年12月26日)
【第51話】PISA2018の結果第一報によせて(2019年12月3日)
【第50話】「キャリア・パスポート」は "お荷物"か?(2019年10月13日)
【第49話】たまには遠くを見てみよう(2019年8月13日)
【第48話】世界は動いている(2019年6月29日)
【第47話】日本版パパ・クオータ制、創設か!?(2019年5月26日)
【第46話】変わりゆく日本型雇用(2019年4月28日)
【第45話】「キャリア・パスポート」例示資料等の発出によせて(2019年4月4日)
【第44話】やっぱり英語は必要だ!(2019年3月13日)
【第43話】キャリア教育とジョン・デューイの「オキュペーション」(2019年2月9日)
【第42話】マハトマ・ガンディー生誕150周年に寄せて(2018年12月23日)
【第41話】書けない・書かないキャリア・パスポートをどうするか(2018年11月17日)
【第40話】教科を通したキャリア教育は難しい?―その3―(2018年9月24日)
【第39話】「主体的・対話的で深い学び」とキャリア教育(2018年8月12日)
【第38話】大学入学共通テストの方向性が示すもの(2018年7月8日)
【第37話】「キャリア教育の要」って、結局、何をどうするの?(2018年6月2日)
【第36話】教科を通したキャリア教育は難しい?―その2―(2018年5月6日)
【第35話】「教員が対話的に関わること」の意味(2018年4月11日)
【第34話】AI時代に求められる力(2018年3月11日)
【第33話】未来は「怖い」か「楽しみ」か(2018年1月27日)
【第32話】テレビドラマが映し出すもの(2018年1月21日)
【第31話】年の瀬の大風呂敷(2017年12月28日)
【第30話】働くって、何だろう?(2017年11月25日)
【第29話】キャリア・プランニングはナンセンス?(2017年11月5日)
【第28話】世界的に問い直される「学びの本質的な意義」(2017年10月29日)
【第27話】世界的潮流としての「教科を通したキャリア教育」の実践(2017年10月1日)
【第26話】「キャリア・パスポート」がやってくる!?(2017年9月10日)
【第25話】他山の石(?)としての1970年代のアメリカにおける実践(2017年8月27日)
【第24話】将来(おそらく)使わないものを勉強する理由 (2017年8月6日)
【第23話】「青い鳥」が住むところ (2017年7月1日)
【第22話】遅ればせながら…「基礎的・汎用的能力」って何?(2017年6月17日)
【第21話】「基礎的・汎用的能力消滅論(!?)」を検証する(2017年6月4日)
【第20話】キャリア教育の「要」としての特別活動(2017年4月23日)
【第19話】アントレプレナーシップって何だ?(2017年4月9日)
【第18話】子供たちの変容・成長をどう評価するか(2017年3月26日)
【第17話】就学前~小学校低学年の子供へのアプローチ(2017年3月11日)
【第16話】小学校・中学校の次期学習指導要領案を読む(2017年2月26日)
【第15話】小学校におけるキャリア教育の豊かな可能性(2017年2月12日)
【第14話】キャリア教育の18年の歩みを振り返る(2017年1月29日)
【第13話】今、高校3年生に伝えたいこと(2017年1月15日)
【第12話】中教審答申がキャリア教育に期待するもの(2016年12月29日)
【第11話】職場体験活動再考(2016年12月18日)
【番外編】PISA2015の結果が公表されました(2016年12月6日)
【第10話】強者の論理(2016年11月30日)
【第9話】学びの先にあるもの(2016年11月14日)
【第8話】キャリア教育と進路指導(2016年10月29日)
【第7話】五郎丸さん(2016年10月14日)
【第6話】「お花畑系キャリア教育」は言われるほど多いか?(2016年10月1日)
【第5話】金太郎飴(2016年9月18日)
【第4話】カリキュラム・マネジメントと「SMART」な目標設定 (2016年9月4日)
【第3話】キャリア教育とPDCAサイクル (2016年8月17日)
【第2話】教科を通したキャリア教育は難しい? (2016年8月2日)
【第1話】職業興味検査は使い方が肝心 (2016年7月31日)