Foreword

Vocational guidance is important to the fulfillment of policies and programmes for girls and women in technical and vocational education. It also supports the aspirations of girls and women and encourages them to enter and succeed in technical and vocational education, and to subsequently become established in related work.

The national contributors, who provided the information on the current policies, programs and practices of educational and vocational guidance for girls and women in technical and vocational education in their ten countries, have provided ample evidence of the great range of activities that are undertaken in the name of vocational guidance. The authors have organized these varied activities systematically that enables one to compare practices within context.

The International Association for Educational and Vocational Guidance (IAEVG) is grateful to Mr. Tiburtini and Dr. Tang of UNESCO for commissioning this study with the objective of providing administrators and professionals throughout the world with this information. They may review their current practices and perhaps gain additional ideas from this report.

The reader may not find the practice of any one country to be exactly the model that he or she Would adapt, but will find a great range of policies and activities that can be "assembled" in different ways to meet local circumstances.

IAEVG hopes that this report will result in the review and revision of educational and vocational guidance at the local, regional, and national levels. Such improved programmes will support the following goals of guidance which are to help students and adults to:

· Understand and appreciate themselves;
· Relate effectively to others;
· Develop appropriate educational and vocational training plans;
· Explore career alternatives;
· Cope with and integrate successfully in society and the labour market.

IAEVG believes that

· All citizens who need and want educational and vocational guidance and counselling should receive vocational guidance and counselling from a competent and recognized professional;

· All who receive guidance and counselling have a right to be given a clear statement of the procedures and outcomes of the service;

· All practitioners in educational and vocational guidance should have appropriate training;

· Educational and vocational guidance practitioners must abide by a public code of ethics.

Finally, IAEVG is very grateful to Drs. Juliet Miller and Louise Vetter for their patient and competent work in preparing this document which involved them in extensive communications with their professional partners in ten countries of five regions of the World,