Abstract:

The Resolution of the Council of the European Union regards successful inclusion of life-long career support has put forward acquiring career management skills as the priority in the strategies of life-long education. This priority foresees events of teaching and learning that help to develop the skills of career management, integration in the whole process of education both in the programmes of primary and secondary education. Notwithstanding what has been defined or advised in the documents, as well as reports, research data shows that support events of career development, including career education, are not integrated in the whole process of education in Latvia. The purpose of the article is to discover and analyze the reasons why career education is not integrated in the whole process of education, and to offer possible solutions of the problem. The methods applied in the research: analysis of the scientific literature and sources, research of the normative documents and qualitative analysis, the analysis of the questionnaire data from schoolchildren and teachers. Based on the conclusions acquired in the theoretical literature, the article substantiates the necessity for the integration of career education in the whole process of education. The analyzed government documents regards planning policy reveal that career support activities play a crucial role both in the development of an individual and the economy of a country and that career support activities, career education has to be integrated in the whole process of education, but the formed support system for career development is formal, it also lacks regularity for being implemented in life, there is no succession and linkage in the normative documents, the responsibility of the involved parties/institutions is not precisely defined, as well as the control system is not defined. The Standard of education in Latvia, stating the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes for a pupil to attain personal growth and development, social integration, continuing education and choice of career, formally foresees opportunities of integrating career education in the whole process of education. The standard of education also includes study fields that help to broaden the lines of study subjects and lets integrate their contents, as well as seven aspects of the education content reveal the multi-layers of the education content and let provide a pupil with the necessary knowledge, skills and attitudes for personal growth and development, social integration, continuing education and choice of career. This kind of approach could promote unity in implementing education content, as well as benefit integrating career education in the whole process of education. However, when looking at the standards of study subjects, all the aspects of education content in the standards of all study subjects are not fully integrated. The collected data of the questionnaires show that in schools career education activities are implemented separately from the general process of education and career education at schools is not systematically managed. Based on what has been analysed in the theoretical literature and the results of the research, as a solution of the above-mentioned problems, in the framework of the research, career education management model for comprehensive schools is worked out and offered, providing the integration of career education in the whole process of education.

Keywords:

Career support, career education, process of education, integration.