Education and Career Guidance

What is Education and Career Guidance (ECG)?

ECG is a developmental process which facilitates the acquisition of attitudes, skills and knowledge that will enable students to better understand themselves, explore viable education and career options, make informed decisions and develop plans to achieve their career aspirations.

What are the outcomes of ECG?

ECG provide students with a social-emotional learning experience which will contribute to

• building students’ confidence through enhancing the self-awareness of their interests, skills, values and strengths;
• increasing their motivation for learning by helping them establish clear goals and perceiving the relevance of their schooling efforts;
• enhancing the ability to make effective decisions in education and career choices; and
• developing 21st century worker qualities of proactivity, adaptability and resilience to thrive in this challenging world of work.

What is our approach to ECG?

(A) ECG is based on the ECG Developmental Model

The ECG Developmental Model is a framework that guides schools in programming developmentally appropriate ECG activities for students at different levels.

The model highlights education and career development as a process that takes place over one’s life span, with three progressive emphases on career awareness, career exploration and career planning. Developing self-identity is foundational to all these three phases, and involves clarification of interests and values, understanding strengths, developing abilities, and formulating life roles in the context of one’s life experiences.

(B) ECG has different emphasis at different levels

Primary School Emphasis: Career Awareness

• Awareness of interests, abilities and career aspirations
• Relation of self to others and work
• Initial preferences in occupational roles assumed in play

Goal: To introduce students to the wide array of occupations, including new jobs created in the ever-changing world-of-work.

Secondary School Emphasis: Career Exploration

• Exploring the world of work
• Awareness of relevant courses of study
• Awareness of skills, interests and values

Goal: To deepen students’ understanding of self and relate schooling to the different education and career pathways.

Upper / Post Secondary Emphasis: Career Planning

• Clarification of career self-concept
• Developing skills in gathering information
• Development of decision-making skills

Goal: To enable students to synthesise information gathered from relevant sources to make sound educational and career decisions.

(C) ECG is delivered through a variety of ways

• Career Education Lessons
• Education and Career Counselling
• Use of Career Self-Assessment Tools
• Education / Career Talks
• Education / Career Clinics
• Visits to Educational Institutions / Industry Organisations
• Visits to Career / Education Exhibitions
• Work Experience¹ / Work Shadowing²
• Career Projects
• Career Portfolios
• ecareers.sg portal

ecareers.sg Portal

What is ecareers.sg?

ecareers.sg is a web-portal designed to facilitate education and career development among students in Singapore. It is premised on the ECG Developmental Model and contains features that facilitate identity development while bringing students through the processes of career awareness, exploration and planning.

Read about the official launch of the ecareers.sg portal.

Key Portal features

• Online-assessment tools — enables self-assessment on interests, skills and values that generate career profiles for students.
• Occupation and Education databases — makes available information such as educational qualifications, job functions, career paths, and salary ranges to enable students to make choices in career and related educational courses.
• ePortfolio — allows students to store results of their self-assessment, academic results, co-curricular activities, educational and career plans they had developed, and evidences of work and projects that could contribute towards completing applications for further education, scholarships and bursary awards. It also consists of the Education and Career planning module which helps students synthesise the information gathered and work out a plan that will bring them towards their goal.
• Job-seeking module — helps students learn essential career-related skills, such as writing of resumes, cover letters and interview skills, through interactive videos, quizzes, and exercises.
• Interactive games and activities — a special feature designed specially to engage primary school pupils in the process of career awareness and exploration.
• Professional site — a resource repository for educators to access training resources, classroom lessons and web seminars; as well as to generate usage reports for planning purposes.

Implementation response from users’ survey

Thus far, the portal has received positive feedback on its overall user friendliness and up-to-date and comprehensive features. A client feedback survey was carried out shortly after the official launch of the ECG Portal in Feburary 2009. From the responses of 142 schools surveyed, the following are highlights of the survey findings:

• 99 % of the schools surveyed reported finding the Portal useful in facilitating the ECG efforts in their schools.
• 39% of the schools have used the Portal with their students, 48% indicated that they planned to use the Portal with their students within the next six months, and another 11% will use the Portal by the end of 2009 (i.e. within 12 months of the initial roll-out).
• 42% of the schools have conducted training for their staff to familiarise them to the Portal and another 48% indicated that they have plans for such training.

Footnote

1. Work Experience — An educational experience for pupils to familiarise themselves with a variety of actual work situations through an attachment to a workplace. They learn about work through direct participation and observation. It is a planned and structured programme undertaken in partnership between the school and specific employers. It is best used for situations when pupils can perform tasks that require little specialist knowledge and/or skills.↵
2. Work Shadowing — An educational strategy that involves a pupil keeping in step with a worker, observing the various tasks that the worker performs in his/her job, and learning about the worker’s role. Used when pupils are unable to perform work tasks that require specialist knowledge and/or skills. Work Experience attachments can include some degree of work shadowing opportunities when pupils shadow key personnel at the workplace.↵