Teachers and Their Role in the Career Choice Process

Context: The main responsibility of the career orientation process lies with the students who transition from lower secondary level to iVET or general upper secondary level schools, together with their parents. Various actors (teachers, career counsellors, in-company trainers etc.) and institutions are involved in this process. Teachers take on several roles in this process and must deal with different, sometimes conflicting, expectations. This paper explores the roles of teachers and the challenges when fulfilling those roles.

Approach: Using data from the project digibe, www.digibe.ch, the roles of teachers are examined from the perspective of students in grades 10 (N=348) and 20 interviews with 10^th-grade teachers who are engaged in career education.

Findings: Results from both data sets highlight that teachers fulfil many different roles, such as an instructor, a facilitator and guide, a coach, or a coordinator. Their roles change over time as students grow older and teachers gain more experience.

Conclusion: We posit that the roles of teachers and other actors involved must be clarified further. Initial and further teacher training must be intensified to strengthen the teachers' role in the career orientation process and prepare them better for their different tasks.