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2023
Country-specific report
Inventory of lifelong guidance systems and practices
PDF version

Inventory of lifelong guidance systems and practices - Portugal

Please cite as: Cedefop (2023). Inventory of lifelong guidance systems and practices - Portugal. CareersNet national records. https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/en/country-reports/inventory-lifelong-guidance-systems-and-practices-portugal-0
Contributor:

Hélia Moura
Acknowledgements: Maria do Céu Taveira; Universidade do Minho
Ana Daniela Silva; Associação Portuguesa para o Desenvolvimento de Carreira ( Portuguese association for career development)
Reviewed by: Cedefop
Copyright: Reproduction is authorised, provided the source is acknowledged.
Disclaimer: Translations of titles/names for entities, country policies and practices are not to be considered as official translations. The facts and opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not necessarily coincide with the official position of Cedefop. Information supplied by the CareersNet core expert is updated to the best of their knowledge according to the relevant reference period and information provided by stakeholders and sources consulted. The records have not been edited by a professional English language services.
Previous versions:  2020

Introduction

Guidance and counselling services are mainly organised under the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation and the Ministry of Employment, Solidarity and Social Affairs. Guidance is referred to in many documents on lifelong learning, education, social inclusion, training and labour market policies. The main goals of guidance are to reduce school dropout, improve school engagement, increase the number of students in VET courses, support smooth transitions between school levels, from school to labour market and during the labour path. Guidance is free of charge when delivered in the public services. Currently, guidance services are delivered by diverse providers, in a wide variety of contexts (schools, colleges, employment centres and vocational training institutions, companies, HR agencies and community projects) throughout the lifespan of clients. The psychology and guidance services in schools, the Qualifica centres, the public employment services (Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional - IEFP, Institute of Employment and Vocational Training), career centres in universities and other entities from the public and private sector, develop information and guidance actions for qualification and employment. These actions should take the beneficiaries’ profile and needs into account, and should be coherent, integrated, systematic, continuous and complementary, according to the competences of each service (Euroguidance, 2018).

Sources

Coordination and collaboration among stakeholders

The Ministry of Education, Science and e Innovation (Ministério da Educação, Ciência e Inovação), through Directorate General of Education (Direção-Geral da Educação, DGE) is responsible for providing guidelines and tools for guidance in the education sector. With the decentralisation of competences in education, some municipalities assumed responsibilities on guidance, with recruitment of technicians, training courses and tools. Even though the guidelines and principles are the same in all education sectors, the school psychologist’s work is framed in the school education project.

The  National Agency for Qualification and Vocational Training (Agência Nacional para a Qualificação e Ensino Profissional, ANQEP) provide guidelines for guidance in Qualifica centres. The aim of these centres is to empower adults to face challenges in their day-to-day lives with a view to progression or reorientation and/or entering the labour market. Providing support in validating prior learning is the focus of Qualifica centres.

In the employment sector, the Institute of Employment and Vocational Training (Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional, IEFP – the Public Employment Service in Portugal) defines guidelines and provides guidance intervention at different levels:

  1. central level: design the guidelines and general principles of guidance provision, creation of intervention models and methodologies and produce the instruments and technical means;
  2. regional level: monitor guidance provision at local level;
  3. local level: provision of career guidance services.

Even though there is no national strategy on guidance, effort has been made for closer cooperation among the different organisations of central administration, DGE, ANQEP and IEFP, through the joint organisation of national events that promote sharing and foster synergy among the different players. An example of this is the national conference organised each year, bringing together practitioners (schools, public employment services and universities), researchers, municipalities, employer representatives, practitioner’s representatives and parents to discuss the role of each one in guidance processes.

The Guidance Award, launched by DGE, open to all sectors both public and private, also promotes cooperation among guidance community.

In some regions of the country, municipalities have organised themselves into clusters and implemented an inter-municipal networking model within the framework of Career Interventions.

At local level there are different types of cooperation among schools, public employment service, municipalities, business community, VET schools and universities. The main collaboration includes:

  1. Qualifica centres: participating in sessions and events related to education and training, transition to the job market, and transition between education and training pathways;
  2. local authorities: participating in events about education and training provision as well as about other initiatives focused on children and young people;
  3. higher education: collaborating in organising activities that support the transition to higher education; collaborating in research projects;
  4. business community: collaborating in organising work-related trainings, internships and events in the field of school and student capacity building in terms of work.

Another example of cooperation is the network of the  Offices for Professional Integration (GIP).  The network of these offices is a partnership between IEFP and local authorities, private social solidarity institutions, relevant associations for local development, associations for the integration of immigrants and ethnic minorities, trade unions and business associations. GIP, under the coordination and accredited by IEFP, provide support to unemployed young people and adults in their pathway to integration or reintegration into the labour market.

Guidance is mentioned in several legislative documents such as the National Anti-poverty Strategy 2021-2030, the National Strategy for the Inclusion of People with Disabilities 2021-2025, the updated National Plan for the Youth Guarantee and National Strategy for Youth. Although not specifically in the area of guidance these documents contribute also to increase cooperation and articulation between various bodies and Ministries.

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Access to guidance

Career guidance is a practice with a very long tradition in Portugal in a wide variety of contexts (schools, colleges, employment centres and vocational training institutions, companies, RH agencies and community projects), delivery methods and modalities. The different modalities of career intervention - self-administered activities, information, class interventions, career self-management workshops, individual or group counselling, career development programmes, consultations with parents, teachers, employers, among others - are part of the same psychological intervention strategy. The professional will use one of several of these modalities depending on the case. Similarly, the context in which the professional operates, the clients’s needs and the resources available will define the broadness of the intervention in terms of goals and activities. Since the creation of the Portuguese Public employment Service (PES - Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional) in 1965, guidance is an activity in all job and training centres. In the education sector, encouraged by faculties of psychology, the Educational and Guidance Psychology Services (Serviços de Psicologia e Orientação, SPO) was implemented in schools in 1983. Extensive development of these services in schools occurred during the 1990s, and in the last two years the number of school psychologists that provide career guidance support has increased. The Qualifica centres have also guidance support for their services on the validation of non-formal and informal learning. They are more recent but have a national outreach. All universities have career centres or other bodies with competences in career guidance. In addition, many NGOs, alone or in cooperation with public authorities, provide guidance to people with vulnerabilities. All these players allow universal access to career guidance, free to all national or foreign citizens.

The Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation (Ministério da Educação, Ciência e Inovação, MECI) is responsible for general non-higher education in Portugal. Recent legislation has created new opportunities to help schools to face challenges in education and to reinforce and to redefine guidance in schools. The last “Students’ profile by the end of compulsory schooling”, put in place in 2017, highlights the need to foster students’ autonomy, exploration, planning, creativity, critical reasoning and social respect, among other transversal competences. These competences are embedded in the curriculum. Below, the above-mentioned legislation refers to:

  1. Basic and upper secondary education curriculum – Decree-Law No. 55/2018, 6th July
  2. Essential Learning Dispatches No. 6944-A/2018, No. 8476-A/2018, 31st August and Dispatche No. 6605-A/2021, 6 July
  3. Legal framework for inclusive education - Decree-Law No. 54/2018, 6th July
  4. Students’ profile by the end compulsory schooling – Dispatch No.  6478/2017, 26th July.

Every public school has guidance services for children from 5 to 16/17 years old, at the end of compulsory education. Information, guidance and counselling are delivered by school psychologists. Psychology and guidance services (Serviços de Psicologia e Orientação, SPO) were created by Decree-law No. 190/91, 17th May. In December 2018, Guidelines for Educational Psychology in Schools was published, with career guidance included. This document was revised and updated in 2023.

The  National Agency for Qualification and Vocational Education and Training (Agência Nacional para a Qualificação e o Ensino Profissional, ANQEP) is overseen by the  Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security and the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation, in conjunction with the  Ministry of Economy. This Agency has responsibility to implement the Qualifica programme, a government initiative with the aim of improving adult levels of qualifications and the employability of individuals by using a qualification strategy that includes various educational and training responses, tools and a broad network of operators. Centros Qualifica, specialised adult qualification centres, can be set up by public or private bodies (providers), such as public primary and secondary education school, directly or partially managed vocational training centres from the network of the Institute of Employment and Vocational Training, companies and associations or other bodies with significant territorial or sectorial importance. In March 2013, the Methodological guide for the application of the lifelong guidance framework (Guia Metodológico de Orientação ao Longo da Vida) was published and was updated in 2017. The framework supports staff who specialise in guidance, recognition and validation of competences (Técnico de Orientação, Reconhecimento e Validação de Competências, TORVC), specifically the ‘diagnosis’ and ‘information and guidance’ stages.

VET institutions known as professional schools (Escolas Profissionais) organise career guidance for VET students. Most of these schools are owned by companies, business associations, foundations, cooperatives, trade unions and local authorities’ delivery guidance intervention. Beyond their core activity, professional schools also provide training for adult education and qualification, skills recognition and accreditation (RVC), and take part in projects aimed at helping disabled people, enhancing equity and fighting social exclusion. Professional schools support development strategies in their contexts, actively working with regional and local authorities and other economic and social stakeholders, and establishing close links with the business environment and employers, enabling on-the-job training as a strong component in the education offer (INNOVAL, 2016).

Higher education is the responsibility of the Ministry of Education, Science and Innovation  (Ministério da Educação, Ciência e Inovação MECI). Higher education institutions (HEIs) have the autonomy to decide on the provision of academic and career guidance for their students. Student services, student associations and the career centres provide career guidance for university students.

The Ministry of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security (Ministério do Trabalho, Solideariedade e Segurança Social) formulates, conducts, implements and evaluates employment, work-based learning, labour relations and working conditions, solidarity and social security policies, as well as the coordination of social policy support for the family, children and young people at risk, elderly and birth, inclusion of people with disabilities, combating poverty and promoting social inclusion. The Institute of Employment and Vocational Training (Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional) is the national public employment service. Its mission is to promote the creation and quality of jobs and to fight against unemployment, through the implementation of active employment measures, including vocational training for young people and adults, via dual certification provision and certified vocational training. Public employment services develop career activities for unemployed and employed individuals. In 2013, a framework was published (Referencial da Atividade OP). In Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional (PES), guidance is presented at all levels:

  1. central level: design the guidelines and general principles of the guidance provision, creation of intervention models and methodologies and produces the instruments and technical means;
  2. regional level: monitors the provision of career guidance at the local level;
  3. local level: provision of career guidance services.

The Portuguese Federation of Vocational Training and Employment Centres for Disabled People (FORMEM), is a non-governmental organisation, made up of private entities that carry out vocational career guidance, training and employment for persons with disabilities. Furthermore, a protocol between PES and the national agency for migration supports a network of professional integration offices (GIP) promoted by associations for the integration of immigrants and ethnic minorities. The National strategy for the integration of Roma communities has guidelines that define guidance as a priority.

Civil society has been playing an important role, especially the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation (CGF). The Foundation’s main purpose is to improve the quality of life through art, charity, science and education. In 2018, the CGF launched a national network composed of up to 100 ‘knowledge academies’ (Academias do Conhecimento) that support locally designed and evidence-based programmes promoting social and emotional learning of children and youth (aged up to 25) in school, family and community settings. This programme is still running in 2023 with an investment of around EUR 3 million. There are also private providers but at a cost. The Faculties of Psychology provides career guidance to the community, young or adults, for a small payment.

The following table (Table 1), provides a summary of guidance providers along with information related to the context, the activities delivered, the target groups and the responsibility and administrative control

Table 1. Guidance providers and related information
Provider Context Activities Clients/Target user groups Responsibility and administrative control
Psychology and guidance services (SPOs) Lower and upper secondary schools Content: information, guidance and counselling; 
Type: individual/ group sessions, study-visits, work-experiences, exhibitions, job placement, etc.
Delivery: extra-curricular and embedded in curriculum programmes, sessions with classroom teachers. Online programmes. Besides guidance, SPOs are also responsible for psycho-pedagogic support for students and teachers and community involvement at all school levels		 Students, parents and teachers School principal;
General Directorate of Education (DGE)
Municipalities
Counsellors; Student services; Student associations, career centres Higher education institutions Content: Information, guidance and counselling; 
Type: individual/ group sessions, study-visits, work-experiences, exhibitions, job seeking and placement, after-placement mentoring, etc.
Delivery: extra-curricular programmes, drop-in services, on-line/ telephone support.		 Students Head of the University/ Faculty/ Institute/ Department
Job Centres Public employment services Content: Information, coaching, guidance and counselling; employability skills development. 
Type: individual/ group sessions, job seeking and placement, after-placement mentoring,
Delivery: face-to-face, on-line.		 Unemployed and employees willing to change job / professional role Institute of Employment and Professional Training (IEFP)
HR workers, counsellors Private companies Content: Coaching, career development, outplacement, employability skills development; 
Type: individual/ group sessions; etc.
Delivery: drop-in services and scheduled appointments		 Adults, companies Privately owned companies either have a HR department that sometimes offer career development services, or they hire HR companies to recruit, develop and improve their workforce.
Vocational Schools
Qualifica Centres		 Vocational Education and Training institutions Content: Information; apprenticeship skills development; transition to labour market; 
Type: group sessions, study-visits, etc. Support in identifying individual projects of education and qualification (PIC - individual project career) Provide the necessary information about the option of education supply and training to the most appropriate candidate profile
Delivery: face-to-face		 Trainees
Adults 		 School principal;
National Agency for Qualification and Professional Education (ANQEP)
Institute of Employment and Professional Training (IEFP)
National Association of Vocational Schools (ANESPO)
NGO/ Government bodies Social inclusion Content: Information; skills development; transition to labour market     Young and adults in situations of professional vulnerability, including  people with disabilities, migrants and refugees FOREM; IPDJ; FENACERCI;

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Quality assurance

The institution in charge of monitoring the compliance with the code of ethics, adopted in 2011, is the Portuguese Psychologists Order (Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses, OPP). It is compulsory to be registered in the Order of Portuguese Psychologists and therefore career guidance is delivered by psychologists. Admission requirements include a master’s degree and an internship of one year. In schools it is necessary to have a specialisation in educational psychology.

The Portuguese Association for Career Development (Associação Portuguesa para o Desenvolvimento da Carreira, APCD) provides supervision for guidance and career counsellors. Every year APCD organises an international seminar where researchers and practitioners present innovative practices in career guidance and counselling. APCD also develops courses addressing the development of digital skills, such as the course Vocations in digital era. In addition to conducting and supporting studies and research on career development, APDC promotes research workshops with the aim to support researchers in this area of knowledge in specific methodologies in order to promote scientific knowledge, the training of research skills adjusted to the needs of different levels of expertise that contribute to the quality of research. All these initiatives are credited by the Order of Portuguese Psychologists.

Universities and the Order of Portuguese Psychologists develop several courses helping career counsellors to upgrade their knowledge. The most important providers, Directorate General of Education (Direção-Geral da Educação, DGE),  National Agency for Qualification and Vocational Training (Agência Nacional para a Qualificação e Ensino Profissional, ANQEP) and Institute of Employment and Vocational Training (Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional, IEFP), offer regular training courses credited by the Order of Portuguese Psychologists, addressed to career counsellors from its units. Normally, each course lasts 39 hours and is delivered in a blended learning mode base with supervision. Although there is no specific reference to guidance interventions, the quality principles are applicable to all the interventions offered by the Qualifica Centres.

Regardless of the sector and the context there is a range of principles common to all of services that provide career guidance:

  1. developmental approach: planning focused on intervention throughout life;
  2. holistic approach: consideration of the individual in the global sense, taking into account the social, cultural and economic contexts in which s/he interacts;
  3. accessibility: availability of services, in space and time, appropriate to the diversity of individuals;
  4. self-determination: respect for personal autonomy, considering not only the needs of the individual but also their interests and preferences, creating opportunities for participation in decision-making;
  5. confidentiality: respect for the privacy of personal information collected during the course of the interventions and which is not essential to share to facilitate the personal, social and professional integration;
  6. impartiality: respect for individual attitudes and beliefs without discrimination on religious, ideological, ethnic, socio-economic, gender, or any other grounds;
  7. individualisation: interventions can be decided on a case-by-case basis, according to their needs, interests, abilities, expectations and values, respecting individual freedom of choice;
  8. continuous improvement: permanent investment in technical and scientific improvement taking into account, in particular, student feedback;
  9. quality: scientific basis and professionalism in the use of methods, techniques and instruments to intervene;
  10. respect for the dignity and rights of the person: respect for the autonomy and self-determination of the people with whom they establish professional relations; safeguarding respect for the principles of informed consent, privacy and confidentiality;
  11. transparency: clear presentation of the objectives of the interventions and of the information to be transmitted, in written support and use of a language that is comprehensible and adjusted.

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Career management skills

Career management skills (CMS) is defined as a set of competences (knowledge, skills, attitudes) that enables citizens at any age or stage of development to manage their learning and work life paths. In that sense, the level of CMS development and matching within the public employment services Vi@s portal is considered high, as the four basic paths provided by the portal facilitate and guide users to diagnose their special characteristics and abilities and exploit their skills, in order to seek an appropriate job position. The four areas in Vi@s include:

  1. work competences: users identify through self-diagnosis tools their competences and develop them to fit the labour market;
  2. exploration: users define their skills and qualifications, to be informed on matching professions and discover correspondent training and job opportunities;
  3. entrepreneurship: entrepreneurs discover their entrepreneurial profile and learn how to develop an enterprise;
  4. professional network: users learn how to respond to a job vacancy, how to prepare a job application and how to react during a job interview.

In addition, the Instituto do public employment service (PES), the Ministry of Education, Lisbon University and the National Agency for Qualification and Vocational Training have developed a Career management skills framework. This framework can be used in all sectors. With the implementation of this framework, individuals will be able to understand, engage and take responsibility for their life projects, keeping a positive perception of their identity regardless of the roles they may take throughout life. The framework includes six dimensions (self-concept; interact effectively; manage information; manage changes; make decisions; find and keep a job) (ELGPN, 2012: 94); for each dimension there are four levels of achievement (to explore; to analyse; to act; to assess). In March 2013, the Methodological guide for the application of the lifelong guidance framework was published and is in use in the Qualifica centres. Along the same lines, in 2013, PES published the Guidelines to guidance activity (Guia da Atividade OP) and implemented the CMS Framework.

Under the responsibility of PES, Skills portfolio and Skills balance are two interventions which aim to increase the focus on skills and recognition of prior learning. They aim to enable the unemployed to identify and value skills acquired throughout their lives in various contexts, as well as to identify the need for new skills, to develop socio-occupational integration projects appropriate to their situation and the requirements of the labour market.

In the school context, although the Ministry of Education has actively participated in the conception of the national CMS Framework, it has not yet been put into practice. However, the Students’ profile by the end of compulsory schooling (2017), highlights the need to foster their autonomy, exploration, planning, creativity, critical reasoning and social respect, among other transversal competences. These competences are embedded in the curriculum. In the same line of action, citizenship education, introduced into the school curriculum aims to contribute to the formation of responsible, autonomous, and solidary people who know and exercise their rights and duties in dialogue and in respect for others, in a democratic, pluralistic, critical and creative spirit, with reference to values of human rights. Contents including the European dimension of education, environmental education, intercultural education, gender equality, education for the development of entrepreneurship and more recently it was launched the Education Guidelines for the World of Work, one of the National Strategy for Citizenship Education domains.

In 2018, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation launched a national network composed of up to 100 ‘knowledge academies’ (Academias do Conhecimento) that support locally designed and evidence-based programmes promoting social and emotional learning of children and youth (aged up to 25) in school, family and community settings.

The  University of Minho developed a career self-management seminar to support the development of career management skills; namely, career exploration, goal-setting, design and implementation of action plans, monitoring and feedback. It consists of eight sessions of 120 minutes each, developed weekly in a classroom environment or at the career centre, with small groups of students from different majors. The Seminar is structured into three main blocks of sessions, in an attempt to address three components of the career construction process: vocational personality, career adaptability, and life themes. Special emphasis is given to career adaptability resources. The career self-management seminar was effective at promoting gains in the cognitive, behavioural, and affective dimensions of career exploration, such as instrumental value attributed to career exploration, environment and self-exploration, systematic and intention information processing. After attending the seminar, groups reported higher levels of career self-efficacy and higher satisfaction with the career information explored, as well as higher career planning, decision-making and world of work knowledge (Pinto, 2010; Loureiro, 2013) .

The University of Tras Os Montes has (UTAD) developed the Plano de Soft-Skills da UTAD which integrates career training, career workshops and volunteering activities for students from BA and MA programmes. UTAD's soft-skills plan (PSSUTAD) is essentially aimed at providing students with differentiated and multifaceted contact and experience which will allow them to amplify and consolidate their skills, preparing them for better integration into the labour market. Further information can be found in the 10th edition of the Soft Skills Plan, here (see also section Guidance for higher education students).

The Portuguese Association for Career Development (Associação Portuguesa para o Desenvolvimento da Carreira, APCD) provides theoretical and practical online workshop for university students, regardless of the course, study cycle and academic year they are attending:

Career Workshop - Emotional Intelligence in Careers aims to enable students to identify the career challenges associated with higher education, to identify and understand how the management of their emotions influences their attitudes and career behaviours and about what Emotional Intelligence is and its role in career development.

Career Workshop - How to promote my employability aims to enable students to understand the factors that contribute to the promotion of your employability, to identify the characteristics of the labour market and what is sought after and valued by recruiters and to identify strategies for preparing a curriculum vitae, motivation letter and behaviour to adopt in job interviews.

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Evidence, monitoring and assessment

Guidance portal Vi@s allows users (students, unemployed, employees) to access information and exercises on career management themes, through the four P@th (work competences; exploration; professional network; entrepreneurship). Users save the exercises in the My portfolio area, and send them by email to technicians and employers, among others. They can also access resources to support professional exploration (orientation games, training podcast, employment measures etc) in the multimedia centre.

The Vi@s Satisfaction survey is completed voluntarily by users and practitioners, without a distinction being made between the two groups. According to the information provided, the majority of respondents stated that they are satisfied with Vi@s from an overall perspective (87%). In specific, the contents helped them comprehend and explore their options (66%), while 70% stated that the content of VI@s assisted them in assessing their skills. Although a formal assessment has not been yet elaborated by the public employment service (Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional - IEFP), Vi@s is informally evaluated threefold:

  1. from a user’s perspective, through satisfaction surveys that are available for completion at the portal;
  2. through monitoring of the records and the number of accesses to the portal broken down per user profile (basic information requested on registration);
  3. from a management perspective, through qualitative assessment of the impact of the portal on the management of public employment service resources, performed by managers, at different levels.

Informal feedback is also collected from employers and practitioners regarding the content and usability of the portal and is transferred to Vi@s via personal communication mechanisms.

In the scope of Directorate General of Education in 2022 a Guidance portal was launched:  JANUS. It is a system for educational psychologists in the context of career interventions. It is a longitudinal intervention (from grade 5 to 12), whose objectives are promotional and remain the same throughout schooling, but with different levels of student performance and mastery, in each year or school cycle. The evaluation of the intervention's effectiveness through the JANUS portal students (from 5 to 12 grade) take a pre-test and when they finish, they take a post-test. Also, at the end of each module there is a satisfaction questionnaire on the activities carried out and on the readiness to continue to the next module (also see Career information and ICT in guidance). The aim is to see how far the student has progressed. It also allows the effectiveness of the programme to be assessed.

A satisfaction survey is included in the online tools from Ministry of Education.

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Career information, ICT in guidance

Digital competences are essential for both exercising full citizenship and to aid employability by meeting the needs of an increasing digitisation of the labour market; a more skilled working population gives rise to more new jobs, as well as innovative markets and products lead to more competitive and robust economic activities. Digital competences are also very important for the development of a critical and multifaceted awareness and to promote social well-being and inclusion (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, n.d.).

To address identified challenges, the Portugal INCoDe.2030 initiative has proposed a wide range of measures involving the various government areas. Digital technology is changing the way people work, interact and learn. Education must therefore support all students to learn with, through and about digital technologies, developing skills that go beyond their simple use. This involves developing scientific reasoning, collaborative work and design capabilities, and even, in many cases, computing skills, fostering students’ skills profile by the end of compulsory schooling. It is essential that the new generation is equipped with these skills through permanent and coordinated education and vocational training systems. The need for ICT skills in the labour market has been growing sharply and, despite the high unemployment levels, particularly among the young, the response to these needs has been insufficient. The disparity between the needs of the labour market and the availability of qualified professionals requires a multi-dimensional intervention to reinforce ICT training (Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia, n.d.). In this context both Ministry of Education and Institute of Employment and Vocational Training, IEFP, (the Portuguese PES - Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional) developed a wide range of initiatives and tools with the aim of supporting practitioners and widening the access to guidance interventions.

One of them is Vi@s Portal, developed by PES; it is accessible to all, both with the assistance of counsellors and autonomously. The portal is addressed to a wide range of target groups and the main goals include:

  1. widen access to guidance services to all individuals;
  2. support all types of life transition (educational, work related, age related) by raising citizen autonomy in developing career management skills;
  3. widen access to VET and job market information to all citizens and practitioners;
  4. explore the complementarity of self-service and regular service in the supply of counselling/guidance;
  5. support the guidance activity of practitioners, parents, teachers and other professionals.

Vi@s portal includes career development activities, assessment exercises, LMI and e-portfolio templates. It allows users to access information and exercises on career management themes, through the four P@th (work competences; exploration; professional network; entrepreneurship). Users may save the exercises in the My portfolio area, keep track of their career activities and assessment exercises and send them by email to PES staff and employers, among others. Technicians can also access contents in the Multimedia centre, to support their self-training and professional practice (orientation games, training podcast, employment measures). The multimedia centre has two different profiles: users with a technical profile and users without a technical profile. A contact form allows users to submit questions and receive feedback from a technician and send exercises to email.

A calendar of events and a satisfaction survey is also available. Access is free of charge, but registration is compulsory. When job seekers register as unemployed on the PES platform, they are directed to Vi@s portal, so that they assess their skills and design a draft personal employment plan. This plan is sent online to a job expert from PES.

  1. the p@th work competences enables individuals to identify their work competences and to develop: relational, creative, information management, time management, decision-making and learning competences.
  2. the p@th exploration has three fields: know yourself (personality, interests, values, abilities, and competences); know professions; and know opportunities (labour market, education, training and employment opportunities at national and community level).
  3. the p@th professional network helps individuals learn how to answer a job vacancy, how to do a job application on its own initiative, and to prepare the job interview.
  4. the p@th entrepreneurship encourages individuals to discover entrepreneurship potential and knowing more about how to create and develop an enterprise.

The portfolio is an area in which it is possible to save and view the exercises. It is also possible to download the exercises and upload documents.

Still within the scope of PES there are different online tools with information and other services. IEFP online is an online portal for recruiters and job seekers that offers a wide range of interactive employment services. The aim is to increase celerity, diversity, accessibility and quality in PES provision channels, by adjusting them to the different customers' needs and expectations. It supports enhancement of the penetration rate (percentage of job placings achieved by PES), namely through the capturing of more qualified job vacancies and jobseekers with higher skills, improving job-matching efficiency.

The Netforce is a computer application, made available and managed by IEFP, IP, which contains the information system for training and certification of trainers. Netforce is also the portal for access to various information contained in the IEFP, IP sites: the e-learning platform, the e-learning portal; the virtual Centros de Recursos em Conhecimento (CRC) library and SkillsPortugal, the portal of the championships of the professions with information on conditions of participation, professions in the contest, phases and results.

Virtual CRC (CRC Virtual) is the collaborative platform of the network of knowledge resource centres (Centros de Recursos em Conhecimento). The portal, managed by IEFP, supports users in exploring their diversity and potentialities; find the nearest CRC; using the library to access to thousands of bibliographical references of monographs, periodicals and hundreds of documents in full text, in free access; access the news and events to find the main activities of the network; and much more.

EURES, the European Jobs Network, aims to facilitate workers mobility within the countries of the European Economic Area. A EURES link along with one-page content are integrated in the IEFP website.

The IEFP e-learning platform aims to support courses to be carried out within the scope of the vocational training centres of direct and participative management. The courses and actions are developed by the National Centre for Qualification of Trainers (Centro Nacional de Qualificação de Formadores, CNQF).

Youth guarantee (Garantia Jovem) helps young people to find job opportunities, internships, education or training in Portugal. The Youth Guarantee aims to offer individuals the opportunity to focus on their qualifications and to be in contact with the labour market in order to combat youth inactivity and unemployment.

In the scope of Directorate General of Education, in 2022 a Guidance portal was launched. JANUS is a system for educational psychologists in the context of Career Intervention. It is a longitudinal intervention (from grade 5 to 12), whose objectives are promotional and remain the same throughout schooling, but with different levels of performance and mastery, in each year or school cycle. It integrates:

  1. A set of activities related to the different dimensions involved in career decision making, including exercises for exploration, reflection and integration of experiences and knowledge;  
  2. The automatic availability of a portfolio for storage and sharing with psychologists, of the results of the activities and exercises carried out by the students;
  3. The uploading, by students and psychologists, of records relating to other related activities and which enable the career to be articulated with other dimensions of life;
  4.  The connection to reliable and updated databases on educational and training offer, and the labour market;
  5. A Technical Handbook for Psychologists.

There is also other guidance online tools addressed to children and students from age five until fifteen. A short description of each follows.

Discovery (Vou à Descoberta): the aim of this tool is to support self-knowledge. The student can choose from a checklist the word that reflects him or her. It is mainly addressed to students from disadvantaged groups but can be also utilised by students from primary school. It is mainly used by counsellors, but parents or teachers can support students in this game.

Climbing of qualifications (Escalada das Qualificações): the aim of this tool is to support students to make decisions and define school and vocational paths. The students have to answer questions about school and the VET system. For each question correctly answered, an alpinist climbs one more step until the top of the mountain is reached. It is mainly addressed to students aged 13/14.

Occupations odyssey (Odisseia das Profissões): the aim is to raise awareness of professions (content of the activity, tools used, place of work, health and safety in work). With different levels of difficulty, children have to identify and put in the right place features related to the profession. At the end they can hear and read a small description. It is addressed to students from 7 to 10 years.

Occupations chest (O Baú das Profissões): the aim is to raise awareness of professions with two levels of difficulty. Children are invited to choose an occupation and to complete a puzzle. At the end they can hear a small description about the occupation they have chosen. It is addressed to children in pre-school education stages and is mainly used with the support of teachers.

Game of emotions (Jogo das Emoções): students are invited to overcome challenges and discover the world of emotions.An online approach was created, by Directorate General of Education, where the guidance tools could be uploaded and downloaded. The aim was to improve the communication among counsellors and to foster exchange of tools, practices and experiences. Every year Euroguidance Centre offers online courses.

Info Escolas provides statistical information on the network of primary and secondary schools and higher education. Furthermore, the portal of the training offer (Portal da Oferta Formativa) aims to make available information on training offers at different levels, cycles and modalities of education and training.

As part of Qualifica programme, the Qualifica passport was created as an electronic tool where qualifications and skills acquired are recorded. It is an important lifelong guidance tool for the upskilling of adults, so it provides guidance to pathways aiming to complete or to obtain a new qualification, taking into account the training already attained and the skills acquired. It offers:

  1. information about education and training paths obtained previously with the indication of the correspondent credit points;
  2. simulation of other education and training paths to be completed in order to acquire new qualifications, taking into account the information recorded and the goals and expectations of the user;
  3. information about existing education and training opportunities and providers.

The passport can be updated and printed at any time, as a tool that accompanies the adult throughout his/her active life.

Study and Research in Portugal and Higher Education Courses are two portals under the responsibility of the Directorate General of Higher Education. They offer information about courses and institutions, access requirements, recognition of degrees and internationalisation.

The civil society has played a crucial role in the development of on guidance online platforms:

The platform  Design the Future was creating in order to increase young students’ knowledge on the present labour market; it also aims at overcoming the gap between the information that is provided by universities on courses and curricula, and the information that young people are seeking to make a decision on their academic future. The platform integrates approximately 200 videos of three to five minutes, containing interviews with representatives of different occupations, and indicates the necessary training for each profession, offering information on more than 3750 courses of 1222 institutions across the country. Target groups are students of secondary education and higher education, career guidance practitioners, psychologists, teachers and parents.

In 2022 more two platforms were launched by the civil society, MyMentor and BrighterFuture.

MyMentor is a platform equipped with exclusive and useful content and tools for developing employability and career management skills, based on four pillars: professions, skills, training and the labour market. Based on this structure, it aims to help in job search, preparation for the labour market, updating skills and changing career paths. The myMentor Platform presents innovative tools for information, training and development of career management skills, particularly highlighting the analysis of future trends in job search/offer, the incorporation of artificial intelligence algorithms, through an online tool that updates job offers daily, the association of skills with qualification paths, essential factors in career management throughout the life cycle. The target group is unemployed, workers with precarious jobs and low qualifications; young people and/or adults who are entering the labour market; those who want to evolve in their profession and/or review their professional objectives. It is possible to get access:

  1. Information on skills and associated professions;
  2. Information on professions and job offers;
  3. Useful information on job search, preparing for interviews, writing a curriculum vitae and motivation letter, among many other things;
  4. Access to a list of training offers to increase qualifications and employability skills.

BrighterFuture aimed at students, workers, employers, educational institutions and other institutional decision-makers that maps the correspondence between courses/training, skills and occupations, adapted to the national labour market context.

There is no explicit legal framework for the integration of Labour Market Information (LMI) in career guidance. Nevertheless, Decree Law No. 396/2007 from 31st of December, that establishes the national qualifications system and defines the structures that ensure its operation, states that in the scope of information and guidance for qualification and employment, specific information relevant to the decision by the agencies and individuals must be made available in order to satisfy their needs, in particular on the provision of vocational training and employment.

This information and guidance should be developed by the public employment service, by the psychology and guidance services of the Ministry of Education and by the Qualifica centres (centres that work with individuals seeking a qualification, aged 18 or more and, exceptionally, with young NEET by referring them to vocational education and training offers and to the development of recognition, validation and certification of competences).

The National Reference Point for Vocational Qualifications (NRP) is a contact point in Portugal where one can find information on the education, training and skill certification systems. It facilitates the mobility of citizens around Europe. In addition to active vocational education and learning measures, Portugal has developed a new tool SANQ (Sistema de identificação de necessidades de qualificações) for predicting the qualifications and skills needs of the country’s economy, and which aims to improve the speed and efficiency of adaptation of VET to the labour market.

Sources

Training and qualifications

A master’s degree is mandatory by law for those working in career guidance both in the public and private sectors. As most practitioners are psychologists, they have a one-year internship overseen .by the Portuguese Psychologists Association (Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses- OPP). In the school context, it is necessary to have a specialization in Educational Psychology, whereas some of them, besides this specialization, still have an advanced specialization in Career Development. For employment at PES (Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional), career counsellors are psychologists and sociologists, who have a probationary training that can vary between 6 and 9 months, before entering.

In its more recent historical development, the training pathways of psychologists working in the field of career guidance, followed two main routes. The first precedes the establishment of the Bologna process (Bologna Declaration, 1999) in Portuguese higher education, and the creation of the Portuguese Order of Psychologists (Law no. 57/2008, of September). Professionals opting for this pathway should have at least a degree in Psychology, corresponding to five years of higher education. The degree in Psychology included a one-year curricular internship in a professional context, supervised by a university lecturer and a more experienced psychologist working in the internship context (Moura et al., 2021, p. 191). In the access to jobs involving career counsellor tasks, all actors prioritize hiring psychology graduates with a curricular internship in School and Educational Psychology, Counselling and Human Development, or Work and Organisations Psychology, because of the greater attention given to the career problems and techniques of career intervention in these areas, when compared with other practical training areas.

Concerning the second training path, the exercise of psychology as a professional activity was first regulated by the Portuguese Order of Psychologists, with the entry into force of its statutes, in 2010. The regulation of the profession stipulates that aspiring psychologists must meet three conditions:

  1. have a higher education degree in Psychology, equivalent to 180 ECTS;
  2. have a higher education degree in Psychology, equivalent to 120 ECTS and;
  3. complete one year of supervised practice, corresponding to 60 ECTS, in one of three defined areas of expertise - Clinical and Health Psychology, Educational Psychology, and Work, Social and Organisational Psychology (OPP Training Regulations, 2010.

These regulations were defined in accordance with the European Diploma in Psychology (EUROPsy), which, in turn, is in line with the curricular reorganisation brought by the Bologna process. This means the degree in Psychology now amounts to three years of study, and can be directly linked to a two-year Master’s programme, leading to  an Integrated Masters in Psychology; or, alternatively, require the enrolment of the student in a new, non-integrated Master’s course in the field of Psychology.

In addition, the Portuguese Association for Career Development (Associação Portuguesa para o Desenvolvimento de Carreira-APDC) provides supervision for career counsellors and guidance practitioners. Every year APDC organizes an international seminar where researchers and practitioners present innovative practices in the field of career guidance and counselling. Moreover, APDC develops courses addressing the development of digital skills, such as the course “Vocations in the digital era”. All these initiatives are accredited by the Order of Portuguese Psychologists. Universities and the Portuguese Psychologists Association develop several courses addressing career counsellors to upgrade their knowledge.  The most important providers, DGE, ANQEP and IEFP, provide training courses accredited by the Portuguese Psychologists Association on a regular basis, addressed to career counsellors from its units. Normally, each course lasts for 39 hours and is delivered in a blended learning approach with supervision.   

Sources

Escola de Psicologia, Universidade do Minho (n.d.). Master in Educational Psychology. https://www.psi.uminho.pt/en/education/2-ciclo/mpe/Pages/Study%20plan.aspx

European Diploma in Psychology (EUROPsy). Eurihttps://europsy-bg.com/en/applying/

Faculdade de Psicologia, Universidade de Lisboa (n.d.). Mestrado Integrado em Psicologia. https://www.psicologia.ulisboa.pt/en/study/masters/

Moura, H. do Céu Taveira, M. and Marques Ramalho, S. (2021). Career practice education and training in Portugal: challenges during the pandemic. In Cedefop et al. (2021). Digital transitions in lifelong guidance: rethinking careers practitioner professionalism: a CareersNet expert collection. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union. Cedefop working paper; No 2. http://data.europa.eu/doi/10.2801/539512, p. 188-201.

Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses (2016). Regulamento n.º 107-A/2016 Regulamento Geral de Especialidades Profissionaisda Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses. Diário da República, 2.ª série — N.º 20 — 29  de  janeiro  de 2016. 3670-(38). https://www.ordemdospsicologos.pt/ficheiros/documentos/regulamento_geral_de_especialidades_profissionais_publicado_no_diaario_da_repaoblica.pdf

Portuguese Association for Career Development. http://www.apdc.eu/index.html

Portuguese Psychologist Association (2011). Junior Professional Year. https://www.ordemdospsicologos.pt/pt/estagios

Funding career guidance

National funds come from the state budget and others from the European Commission. The Ministry of Education finances its central and regional services, as well as the public education institutions. Public employment services finance job and training units.

The Euroguidance network budget contributes to supporting guidance. In addition, the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, since 2019 has been allocating a budget to support guidance projects. By 2023 this amount had been EUR 3 million.

Sources

Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation. https://gulbenkian.pt/en/

Gender-based policies

The respect for gender issues is guaranteed in several documents:

  1. The National Strategy for Equality and Non-Discrimination 2018-2030 refers to a set of principles that have been transposed to career guidance, namely the obligation to use non-discriminatory language and the training of practitioners;
  2. According to the deontological code that regulates the psychologists' intervention, all technicians are bound to the principle of impartiality. Impartiality is defined as “respect for individual attitudes and beliefs without discrimination on religious, ideological, ethnic, socio-economic, gender, or any other grounds”;
  3. The Guidelines for Educational Psychology in Schools set out self-determination as a crucial principal. Self-determination is defined as “Respect for personal autonomy taking into consideration the interests and needs of the students, as well as their identity”.

To ensure that all practitioners are aware of these issues since 2018 all training sessions for school psychologists integrate a module on Equality and Non-discrimination.

The language and graphical image used in both paper and digital documents respect gender issues.

Sources

Comissão para a Cidadania e Igualdade de Género -CIG (Commission for Citizenship and Gender Equality).  https://www.cig.gov.pt/

Direção-Geral da Educação - DGE (Directorate General of Education) (2024).  Referencial para a Intervenção dos Psicólogos em Contexto Escolar . https://dge.mec.pt/sites/default/files/EInclusiva/referencial_para_a_intervencao_dos_psicologos_em_contexto_escolar.pdf

National Strategy for Equality and Non-Discrimination 2018-2030. https://dre.pt/dre/detalhe/resolucao-conselho-ministros/61-2018-115360036

Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses-OPP (Portuguese Psychologists Order). https://www.ordemdospsicologos.pt/pt

Ordem dos Psicólogos Portugueses – OPP Portuguese Psychologists Order). Código de Ética https://www.ordemdospsicologos.pt/ficheiros/documentos/web_cod_deontologico_pt_revisao_2016_1.pdf

Career guidance for school pupils

School and career guidance is an important part of the education process. In 1986 Article No. 26 of the Education Act (Lei de Bases do Sistema Educativo) states that ‘guidance services within regional school structures shall support the psychological development of students, their educational and professional orientation, as well as psycho-pedagogical support for educational activities and to the system of interpersonal relations within the community School’. The  Ministry of Education, through Law No. 190/1991, 17th May, set up the psychology and guidance services (Serviços de Psicologia e Orientação, SPO) and integrated them into the school network. The role of these services is to follow up the students’ progress throughout their school lives, helping to pinpoint their interests and aptitudes and intervening in the teaching-learning process.

SPO are a specialised education back-up unit that undertakes its activity together with the education community in pre-school establishments and in schools providing compulsory education (first, second and third cycles of basic education and upper secondary education) that integrate school clusters. These services provide psychological and psycho-pedagogical support as well as school and career counselling and guidance to students, teachers, parents and child-carers, as well as to non-teaching education staff. Guidance and counselling are usually offered as extra-curricular services. They have mostly an optional status, due to their inclusion in psychological services, which are ethically subject to individuals’ informed consent and willingness to attend such interventions (Regulamento 258/2011). Nonetheless, some schools provide compulsory career guidance services, in an attempt to facilitate all students’ access to career guidance and to contribute to their academic achievement. In expected moments of career decision-making and academic transition, guidance services tend to be offered as small group interventions supporting career exploration and information. There are also schools that provide career guidance as a classroom intervention consisting of informative seminars led by psychologists. In the school setting, psychologists can offer consultancy to teachers regarding their role in students’ career development and academic processes. A wide range of online tools to support career education are available. The main tasks are to:

  1. support students in the process of developing their identity;
  2. foster autonomy in information research;
  3. support the acquisition of career management skills;
  4. carry out information actions on the education and training system and on the existing offer at national and community level;
  5. collaborate in the organisation and follow-up of study visits and activities to approach the labour market;
  6. support mobility experiences;
  7. prepare the transitions along the educational and professional path;
  8. encourage learning initiatives in concrete contexts of activity, such as volunteering, internships and job shadowing;
  9. supporting information and awareness raising activities among parents and guardians and the community in general, on aspects inherent to career decision-making.

The document Students’ profile by the end of compulsory schooling (DGE, 2017), which defines student’s profile for the 21st century, might offer a promising opportunity for school psychological services to articulate careers and academics through lifelong career guidance. Such a profile proposal highlights the need to foster students’ autonomy, exploration, planning, creativity, critical reasoning, social respect, among other transversal competences. In addition, in 2024, a new document for educational psychology in schools that  was published and also includes career guidance (DGE, 2024).

Good practices

The career intervention community clubs (Clubes Comunitários) has been implemented in three schools in Northwest Portugal since the school year 2014/15. It is a career intervention for high school students, aiming at fostering their career adaptability and engagement in school. Community clubs rely on a process involving the identification of and action towards community problems across five main stages: identification, development, enactment, evaluation and sharing. Students start by identifying a community problem (e.g., diabetes, poverty), explore extant literature about it and ask for support from community members (e.g., parents, teachers, nurses, psychologists, researchers). Then, students build and enact a plan of action to solve such a problem, while activating resources and community partnerships. Students also evaluate their work and the impact of their plan. Finally, students share their projects with colleagues, partners and other community members. In the Portuguese experience, students work together in a group of five or six, each under the supervision of a high-school teacher, with the collaboration of an entrepreneurship commissioner, the coordination of a school psychologist and the main partnership of university researchers. Provisional results suggest a positive impact on students’ career adaptability, engagement in school and academic achievement. This intervention is a promising strategy for jointly promoting students’ career and academic development, aligned with the desired student’s profile for the 21st century (further information can be found here).

The use of My career story (A história da minha carreira) is another example of good practice, empirically validated. MCS is an autobiographical workbook for career construction counselling. The aim is to promote narrative identity to facilitate the construction of career plans for adolescents and adults. Since 2016, this programme has been implemented in high-schools at the regions of Lisbon and Setúbal. The programme is organised in three parts, through seven sessions of 90 minutes each. The first part, Telling my story, begins by defining student’s problem, outlining expectations for the intervention, and compiling a list of occupations that the student has considered for their career. Next, the student answers four questions related to life–career themes. The second part, Hearing my story, helps identify life themes and interests as well as aiding the reconstruction of the life story and the exploration of educational and occupational plans. In the third part, Enacting my story, the focus is on the definition of career goals and identification of resources for their implementation. Research showed the usefulness of My career story in increasing student’s sense of direction, self-discovery and increased self-awareness (Cardoso, Janeiro & Duarte, 2017).

Another good practice example is job-shadowing activities designed to help 12th grade students improve their self-knowledge, knowledge about job requirements and career exploration skills, and intentional behaviour. Such activities comprise briefing, experiential and debriefing phases; these are carried out via several sessions taking place throughout the school year and are properly documented to allow their extension to different school contexts and their overall evaluation, considering the common and the specific contextual features.

Promoting parental support and vocational development of eighth grade students has the aim of gathering occupational information and stimulating discussion between the dyad as students work out a solution. It is a parent-student activity designated as career dilemmas which consist of problem-solving situations, applied once a week (six consecutive weeks). Students bring the dilemmas home and work on them with their parents, solving the weekly dilemma by finding a solution. In the classroom, participants, before receiving another dilemma for the following week, read out their weekly solution to the previous dilemma, and a discussion conducted by the school psychologist, follows. Each session of discussion lasts up to 45 minutes (see section ICT in lifelong guidance).

 The Space Between aims at involving children’s families, during the years of transition, after and before this changes (from the kindergarten to the primary school, from primary school to 5th grade, and from 9th grade to secondary level). Facilitating successful transitions requires that attention be paid to students’ preparedness for these changes and the kinds of support children and families need before, during, and after the these moments. The project bases its work on the well-established point in  numerous studies that parents who are warm, responsive to children’s questions and emotions, provide structure, set limits and make demands for competence, have children who are more likely to succeed (Fernandes Pereira, 2020; Direção Geral da Educação, 2020). the Space Between holds regular parental training sessions on topics such as: the development of conscious and positive parenting strategies, the promotion of autonomy and the creation of positive expectations about each student’s future or even the promotion of new habits and methods of study (adapted to the new level of development). This is also an opportunity to encourage family involvement in students' school life, and families are invited to participate in school activities - there are some projects in which the cooperation is constant (autonomy and curriculum flexibility). The previous visit to the ‘future new school’ is also an important activity integrated in this parental training program during the transitions.

Another project “Des(Envolver) Futuros” (Developing Futures), an extracurricular programme, is aimed at 11th grade students. This is a group intervention programme to promote students' career exploration, reinforcing career adaptability skills with a view to making appropriate and realistic career choices, as well as encouraging autonomous planning and decision-making.

“Tu Baralhas-me” (You mess me up) is a psychological intervention activity developed by the Psychology Service of the University of Algarve. It is addressed for young people who attend 9th, 10th, 11th or 12th grade. The main purpose of this initiative is to promote self-knowledge in the context of career interests, to present strategies that facilitate exploration and career planning, and to facilitate students' awareness of the involved factors of choosing a higher education course. The evaluation of this workshop has been regarded by most participants, in all editions, as a useful or very useful activity.

Sources

Guidance for VET participants

VET participants, adults or young people could have guidance in schools, PES, Centros Qualifica and professional schools. Guidance in this context supports citizens in choosing a training course, promoting learning during the course and supporting the transition to the labour market.

The professional schools in Portugal, most owned by companies, business associations, foundations, cooperatives, trades unions and local authorities, delivery guidance intervention to young people. The intervention has different phases:

  1. before enrolling at school: set up the challenge, enthuse the student about different courses;
  2. during the selection process: give information about the course, get to know students’ strengths and weaknesses. Is the student up for the school challenges?
  3. during the three years at school: follow-up, provide support and prepare the students for the studies. Support in the transition to university and/or job market; knowledge of current information on studies pursuit, monitoring, be available, be present.

Unemployed, adult or young, registered in PES, whose personal employment plan is for qualification, benefit from guidance intervention in the employment and training units. In addition, the employment unit provides psychological assessment with the aim to enable the unemployed jobseeker to explore information about themselves and integrate it with other context information, about the world of work and occupations and about the characteristics of the several types and areas of vocational training to decide which training action is most appropriate for them. Furthermore, the training unit provides psycho-pedagogical support, with the aim to help the trainee adapt to the context of training, to assure training success/ prevent early leaving, to improve/ optimise the learning process (see section Guidance for adult learners).

Sources

ANESPO. https://anespo.pt/

Qualifica centres. https://www.qualifica.gov.pt/#/

Guidance for higher education students

Higher education institutions (HEIs) have the autonomy to decide on the provision of academic and career guidance for their students. Most HEIs have services to support students in several areas such as professional placement and careers advice. Student services, student associations, and the career centres provide career guidance for university students. The services focus on increasing access to career information, individual and group career counselling, work-based learning opportunities and mentoring programmes for all university students and prospective students.

The University of Tras Os Montes (UTAD) has developed the Plano de Soft-Skills da UTAD which integrates career training, career workshops and volunteering activities for students from BA and MA programmes of all courses taught in UTAD. This plan lasts one academic year and is promoted by the GAIVA (Office of Insertion in Active Life)GFORM (Training Office) in articulation with the other units of UTAD (departments and offices). For those who comply with the requirements, a certificate of attendance and ECTS will be assigned. The contents include: a) being an entrepreneur; b) managing conflict; c) organise the agenda; d) funding sources; e) be more creative; f) internationalisation; g) active job search; h) CV building; i) public speaking; j) teamwork; k) role-play interview; l) make summaries; m) tools for creativity.

The workshop “What should you be able to do on the first year of your course?” is aimed at students who attend the first year of the University of Algarve (Universidade do Algarve, UAlg). This initiative is part of the Programme to prevent drop-out and school failure, whose main purpose is to identify difficulties and possible barriers to successful integration in higher education. It is within this scope that the Unit of Educational Psychology, Development and Career Counselling, Psychology Services, in collaboration with the Pedagogical Council of the School of Human and Social Studies, developed a career intervention, with reference to the developmental/contextual framework and social cognitive career theory. This intervention is organised in four activities:

  1. activity 1 (What’s up?) is an evaluation of the expectation and analysis of the work plan to be adopted. At this stage, with the intention of promoting the involvement of family and peers, participants are invited to send a message by mobile phone, giving an account of the activity they are carrying out (e.g., WhatsApp);
  2. activity 2 (Who am I?), the focus is on self-exploration, taking into account interests and values, in the context of a joint reflection activity (co-navigation);
  3. activity 3 (What am I capable of?), in which the confidence to solve different tasks associated with the first year of a higher education course through the Kahoot application is analysed;
  4. activity 4 (What you should be able to do in the first year) refers to the tasks already accomplished are highlighted in the host guide and checklist (which must be maintained throughout the school year).

Until now most of the participating students considered that this was useful (47.88%) or very useful (43.7%), and only 8.5% considered it not to be useful (see section Career management skills).

Sources

Guidance for adult learners

The Qualify programme (Programa Qualifica) is dedicated to the qualification of adults and aims at improving their education and training levels as well as at contributing to the improvement of the overall population employability. It is based on a qualification strategy that integrates educational and training tools which promote an effective qualification. Within this context, guidance has a relevant role in the recognition and validation of the learnings adults have had in their multiple life contexts.

The programme seeks to support low-skilled adults or young unemployed in improving their educational attainment level (certifications) and their level of professional qualification. It is coordinated by the national cross-sector governmental  agency ANQEP (Agência Nacional para a Qualificação e o Ensino Profissional, National agency for qualification and vocational education) and is implemented by the Qualifica centres (centros Qualifica). The ANQEP is responsible for approving and issuing licenses for the establishment of Qualifica centres; it provides technical and financial support to the centres and monitors their activity.

Qualifica centres are funded from the European Social Fund (ESF) and the State budget and are the only entities certified to perform validation (including recognition, validation and certification of competences, Reconhecimento, Validação e Certificação de Competências, RVCC). The stages and steps of the Qualifica programme are: reception and enrolment of individuals; screening and diagnosis of their needs, motivations, expectations and learning experiences; information and guidance with the elaboration of a portfolio and of a vocational development plan; referral to education/training providers or to RVCC and validation; and obtaining of a certification of competences. Since both guidance and validation are offered by Qualifica centres, the programme follows an integrated model (see European inventory on validation).

The Qualifica Centres are specifically designed to provide service, counselling, guidance and referral for learning pathways, based on current qualification needs in the different areas and economic sectors. They can be set up by public or private bodies (providers), such as public primary and secondary education schools, directly or partially managed vocational training centres from the network of the Institute of Employment and Vocational Training (IEFP, IP), companies and associations or other bodies with significant territorial or sectoral importance and proven technical capacity regarding their sectors and end users. The work of these bodies focuses on adults of 18 or older who want a qualification. They have coordinator, guidance, recognition and validation of competence staff, as well as trainers or teachers from different key competence areas and various fields of education and training. The centres’ work focuses on the individual and the fundamental stages of: reception; assessment; information and guidance; referral; training; recognition, validation and certification of competences. The Qualifica Centres are concerned with:

  1. information sessions on education and training provision;
  2. the current job market;
  3. emerging professional opportunities;
  4. forecasting training needs;
  5. opportunities for mobility in the European and international areas;
  6. guidance sessions that allow the target audience to identify the most appropriate provision for their abilities and interests.

In March 2017, the Methodological guide for the application of the lifelong guidance framework was published. It was updated in 2017 and supports staff who specialise in guidance, recognition and validation of competences (Técnico de Orientação, Reconhecimento e Validação de Competências, TORVC), specifically the diagnosis and information and guidance stages. With this framework, six key competences are considered to help adults build and manage their career, after reception and registration at a Qualifica centre. At the end of the guidance process, candidates are expected to be able to:

  1. develop self-concept - adopting attitudes and behaviours that reflect an adequate perception of oneself;
  2. interact effectively - being able to relate to different people, facilitating communication and interaction, managing difficulties and any conflicts when relating to others;
  3. manage information - using appropriate strategies to locate, collect and validate information, researching and managing information relevant to career;
  4. manage change - by being able to adjust to new challenges and to engage in development, mastering strategies that facilitate transitions in the various life situations, as agents of change;
  5. decide - when analysing and assessing alternatives, weighing the consequences of immediate and long-term options;
  6. access and maintain qualification pathways and/or the job market - in order to master strategies for (re)entering training and (re)entering the job market.

In 2018, ANQEP published the document Bolsa de Actividades (activities pool), indexing it to the Methodological guide for the application of the lifelong guidance framework, which presents a set of proposed activities (described in a specific way) for each career-building and management objective. This document contains 48 activity proposals that support the guidance and RVC staff during the diagnostic, information and guidance stages.

The Qualifica passport, is a digital tool that records the training/skills/qualifications acquired by the individual throughout their life, as well as simulating possible pathways or organising others, done or to be done, depending on the qualifications the individual can acquire and the academic and professional progress that can be achieved (see section ICT in lifelong guidance).

Sources

Guidance for the employed

The public employment services (Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional - IEFP, Institute of Employment and Vocational Training) develop career activities for unemployed and employed individuals. Nowadays, the emphasis is on the creation of conditions to enable working adults to engage with vocational education and training to face the challenges of globalisation and the increasing of robotisation in the labour market, empowering them to stay in the job market in a productive way. In specific, the PES act in a preventive way to:

  1. support the internal or external professional retraining of company workers in restructuring, recovery, reorganisation or modernisation;
  2. promote the integration of external change processes within the framework of the development of individual careers;
  3. support identification and validation of acquired skills, for those who are at risk of unemployment, in order to support their professional retraining.

The governmental strategy to improve adult learning and education is based on two approaches: raising the academic training of the workforce and making vocational education a real option for people, through:

  1. a lifelong recognition system;
  2. validation and certification of competences (RVCC), through formal, informal and non-formal learning, allowing students to obtain dual academic and professional certifications;
  3. courses of education and training for adults (EFA);
  4. modular training for students over 18.

Portugal has been actively trying to improve the quality and labour market relevance of vocational education and training. Training at the work place has increased significantly due to the forming of partnerships with industry. In addition to active vocational education and learning measures, Portugal has developed a new tool SANQ (Sistema de identificação de necessidades de qualificações) for predicting the qualifications and skills needs of the country’s economy, and which aims to improve the speed and efficiency of adaptation of VET to the labour market.

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Guidance for unemployed adults

The public employment services develop career activities for unemployed and employed individuals. The Institute of Employment and Vocational Training (Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional, IEFP) is responsible for the employment and vocational training centres. Guidance intervention takes place in employment and training units in a complementary way.

Guidance activities insert themselves and interrelate with the guidelines defined for the organisational units, employment or training, in which they are developed and in terms of employment and training policies. The essential elements of the intervention model for the unemployed are the profiling system and personal employment plan (PEP).

The profiling system consists of segmentation of unemployed jobseekers into three types of profile, according to the extent of probability to become long-term unemployed (LTU) at the time of their employment registration, and the consequently greater or lesser efforts required of the PES (Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional).

The PEP is conceptualised as a predictable path of insertion of the unemployed that integrates the necessary stages to improve the employability profile and facilitate (re)integration into the labour market. It is agreed between the employment service and the unemployed.

Guidance activities aim to support the implementation of a PEP in accordance with the potential to become a LTU identified through the profiling system. If the profile is:

  1. suitable for the market, the PEP steps are job placement or job creation, while guidance interventions refer to promotion of entrepreneurial spirit and/or job search techniques;
  2. with employability deficits, the PEP steps are qualification, while guidance interventions refer to psychological assessment through tests and interviews;
  3. in need of intensive support, the PEP steps are personal development, while guidance interventions are much deeper and will act on promoting motivation, personal and professional skills balance, self-esteem promotion, personal and social skills development.

Career guidance in PES (Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional), besides being related to the political guidelines on employment and training, is also based on theoretical concepts, particularly about the career. The developmental perspective of the career, with the various evolutions that it has been targeting, particularly since the 1980s, as well as the contextualist and transactional perspectives, are inherent to the guidance approach. The three main features are:

  1. complementarity of interventions in employment and training units;
  2. coherence, interventions in the context of the organic unit and the institution;
  3. criteria, each unemployed person participates only in the intervention he/she needs.

Guidance is focused on empowering individuals to manage transitions through the promotion of career management skills. This means management of the training and labour paths predominantly by:

  1. support to individuals for investment in the labour market;
  2. support for self-assessment, self-knowledge and description of skills acquired in different contexts;
  3. promotion of cognitive, intra- and interpersonal attitudes and competences, facilitating integration and socio-professional adaptation;
  4. motivation for investment in learning paths;
  5. adapting to the training context, minimising drop-outs and making learning profitable;
  6. promotion of initiative and entrepreneurship;
  7. promotion of flexible attitudes towards employment integration opportunities (in terms of geography, integration, self-employment or self-employment) and job-seeking initiatives.

There is a wide range of technical tools to support the intervention:

  • The Motivational promotion programme aims to mobilise the unemployed who experience their situation in a particularly negative way, denoting passivity and disinterest in undertaking actions to labour market integration. This intervention is intended to induce a greater positive attitude and behaviours and the engagement in strategies to overcome unemployment, in order to facilitate integration in the labour market.
  • The Personal and professional skills balance is intended to enable the unemployed to identify and value skills acquired throughout their lives in various contexts, as well as to identify the need of new skills, in order to develop socio-occupational integration projects appropriate to their situation and the requirements of the labour market.
  • Self-esteem promotion is intended to change the feelings of self-devaluation and incapacity in the unemployed and so contribute to their insertion into their working lives in a positive and adapted way.
  • Personal and social skills development is used to promote the competence profiles required by the labour market, providing the unemployed, with personal difficulties in the area of employability, acquire or reinforce cognitive competences that integrate models of identification and problem solving.
  • The Entrepreneurship program is intended to reinforce the predisposition to diversify the possibilities of labour integration, through self-employment or the creation of a company. It promotes awareness of the aspects involved in the design and implementation of a business project, in order to contribute to the presentation of realistic projects.
  • Job search techniques helps aid the systematic, organised and potentially more effective demand for employment, by familiarising the unemployed with the different strategies for integration in the labour market and teaching the techniques and tools to support the development of these strategies.

Most of these interventions are developed predominantly in groups but may also be promoted online according where the unemployed have relevant information and communication technologies. Online services should be done through Vi@s, the guidance portal. In this situation, the monitoring of their development must also occur at a distance, in particular through reciprocal contacts between the guidance professional and the unemployed.

The Careers Workshops are an intervention based on theory and empirical evidence on career development interventions, with a special focus on adult life. Its main goal is to empower adults with career management skills and thus contribute to the length of time they remain unemployed. The intervention is developed in small groups.  It has a duration of 18 hours, organised in 9 sessions of 2 hors each.  It is developed in the face-to-face modality (6 sessions) and in the remote modality (3 sessions). It is structured in 3 Modules:

  1. Being EU+: Self-reflection and Personal Value;
  2.    Being with the World: Communication; Exploration and Personal Responsibility;
  3. Acting and Moving Forward: Support for the consideration of Alternatives and Decision Criteria.

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Guidance for older adults

There is no specific programme for this group but there is a considerable investment in the qualifications of these older adults to allow them to remain active and relevant in the employment market in their later years. The methodology referred to older adults is that described in sections Guidance for the employed and Guidance for adult learners. 

Guidance for early leavers

The Integrated programme for education and training (PIEF) has been developed with the aim of providing support for at-risk students and ESLs in order to acquire a lower secondary degree.

The Programa nacional de promoção do sucesso escolar ( National programme to promote school success – PNPSE) was launched in 2016 aiming at promoting quality in education for all and fighting failure and early leaving, valuing equal opportunities and increasing efficiency and quality of the public school.

The Programme Educational Territories of Priority Intervention (Programa Territórios Educativos de Intervenção Prioritária, TEIP), (Order No.   147-B/ME/ 96, 1 August), is a government initiative, currently implemented in 137 clusters of schools, especially those located in economically and socially disadvantaged territories, marked by poverty and social exclusion, where violence, indiscipline, neglect and school failure are manifested. The main objectives of the programme are the prevention and reduction of early school leaving and absenteeism, the reduction of indiscipline and the promotion of educational success for all students.

Choice programme (Programa Escolhas) was launched in 2001. A new  generation  E9G was created in 2023. In the current E9G, the Choices Programme's mission is to promote social inclusion and integration, equal opportunities in education and employment, the development of skills, critical and creative thinking, valuing the educational power of the arts and sport, combating social discrimination, civic participation and strengthening social cohesion, and is aimed at all children and young people, particularly those from contexts of greater socio-economic vulnerability.

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Guidance for NEET

The Youth guarantee scheme is a European initiative that tries to tackle the high rate of youth unemployment in Portugal; it is under the responsibility of IEFP (Instituto de Emprego e Formação Profissional, Institute of Employment and Vocational Training). It aims at ensuring that, within four months after leaving the education or the labour market, young people under 30 will be either employed or re-engaged in studies, vocational training or internship. Moreover, it intends to give young people the chance to improve their qualifications and to be in contact with the labour market, counteracting inactivity and unemployment, by offering individual support and guidance, preventing inactivity cycles. The projects are developed in schools, VET institutions and PES (Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional). Under the range of YG is the National strategy for signalling NEETs, launched in June 2017 and updated in 2021 it is based on the following strategic pillars, where guidance has a crucial role:

  1. Pillar I: Integration in the labor market;
  2. Pillar II: Skills and qualification;
  3. Pillar III: Green and digital transition;
  4. Pillar IV: Inclusion of vulnerable publics;
  5. Pillar V: Integrated system of outreach, guidance and follow-up;
  6. Pillar VI: Governance model.

Portugal, as with most of the countries of EU that are implementing the Youth guarantee programme, identified the complexity of reaching out to those inactive young people who are turned away from the formal education, training and employment system. Portugal had the support of the International Labour Organization (ILO) to develop the National outreach strategy for the young people not in employment, education or training (NEET).

The Youth guarantee (YG) goes beyond a simple set of measures to support employment, education and training. It is a policy framework that requires countries to provide a quality offer of employment, continued education and training, apprenticeship or traineeship to all young people (aged up to 29), who are neither in employment nor in education and training within four months of becoming unemployed or leaving school. The YG aims to reach those unemployed young people who are registered with the Portuguese public employment service (also classified as NEET) as well as those other inactive and discouraged young people who are turned away from the formal education, training and employment system.

There is support from a vast network of partners (about 1500) who make use of a wide range of proactive measures helping to boost demand for young people's labour. This approach is a major differentiating factor.

The programme Empreende Já (Be an entrepreneur now!) is a support measure for self-employment targeting young people who are in a NEET situation, aged between 18 and 29 years old and who have completed the 12th grade. This programme includes 250hours of vocational training on entrepreneurship skills.

One other programme related to NEET is Afirma-te Já!. Its aim is to support the promotion of local intervention projects, and combating obstacles to access to education, vocational training and decent employment. It intends to intervene as a link between young people and the employment services, and comprises two pillars of intervention - learning and employability.

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Guidance for young people at risk

Choice programme (Programa Escolhas) was launched in 2001. A new  generation  E9G that was created in 2023. In the current E9G, the Choices Programme's mission is to promote social inclusion and integration, equal opportunities in education and employment, the development of skills, critical and creative thinking, valuing the educational power of the arts and sport, combating social discrimination, civic participation and strengthening social cohesion, and is aimed at all children and young people, particularly those from contexts of greater socio-economic vulnerability.

Matosinhos secondary school opportunity (Escola de Segunda Oportunidade de Matosinhos), for example,  is addressed to low-skilled, at-risk young people aged between 15 and 25 living in Matosinhos and other municipalities in the Porto Region. The aim is to offer these young people a new training opportunity that encourages their learning and the development of their potential. It seeks to create conditions for the personal development and personal construction, reversing paths of social exclusion. This is a response between early school leaving and training and/or employment, not a specific alternative to regular training systems.

The Programme Educational Territories of Priority Intervention (Programa Territórios Educativos de Intervenção Prioritária, TEIP), (Order No. 147-B/ME/96, 1 August), is a government initiative, currently implemented in 137 clusters of schools, especially those located in economically and socially disadvantaged territories, marked by poverty and social exclusion, where violence, indiscipline, neglect and school failure are manifested. The main objectives of the programme are the prevention and reduction of early school leaving and absenteeism, the reduction of indiscipline and the promotion of educational success for all students.

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Guidance for persons with disabilities

The overall national strategy relies on an inclusive approach. Special needs and disabled students are integrated in the normal school system and profit from the same support and guidance as all other students. The new legislation, based on principles and strategies designed to support successful learning for every student (Decree-Law No. 54/2018, 6th July), reinforced this approach. As specialised staff and members of the multidisciplinary team to support inclusive education, psychologists play a key role in students’ holistic development, taking into account learning to know, learning to do, learning to live together and to live with others, and learning to be. Nevertheless, there is an individual transition programme which aims at allowing these students to develop abilities and competences which should allow them better entry to the employment market.

After the compulsory education term, there are a number of institutions, mainly NGO, dedicated to these target groups. They promote, on a sustained basis, vocational training, evaluation, career guidance and placement support to promote the access, maintenance and progression of the employment of people with disabilities, contributing to their full inclusion. Information and guidance play a vital role in helping vulnerable people to prepare for transitions in the new global labour market. A career counsellor should help learners to choose the programmes best suited to their needs and, in terms of choices, give them a realistic view of the opportunities available. The guidance process has the potential to empower people to take decisions about their lives, learning and work, and is an excellent tool for promoting inclusion.

The process starts from the identification of the person's aspirations and their potential, not being limited by the limited range of options that society usually offers these individuals.

When identifying expectations and potential, it is important to use adapted tools and ensure communication, for example by using a sign language interpreter. If there is a support person, he or she should also be involved in the process. Considering the limitations that such people often present, it is crucial to include concrete experiences, for example in the context of work, so that decision-making is based on experiences and not only theory. In the validation phase of the decision / definition of life project and in previously identified cases of communication difficulties (due to language, cognitive deficit or other issues), the presence of the support person and/or an interpreter may be needed. However, regardless of the constraints, it is always the individual who decides.

In 2023 a platform was created, called TEAM for managing inclusive education in Portugal. TEAM is an educational tool, effective in promoting learning and school success, mobilising more integrated decisions and ensure more cohesive multidisciplinary work to guarantee the achievement of common goals. It uses data science to make risk predictions, define intervention priorities and advise on support systems. It makes possible to evaluate the progress and impact of the intervention.

In the scope of PES (Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional) service for adults with disabilities there is a measure “Apoio à integração, manutenção e reintegração no mercado de trabalho (Support for integration, maintenance and reintegration in the labour market”. This includes orientation for qualification and employment. Guidance interventions have the aim of supporting people with disabilities and the disabled in the informed choice of their career path by identifying the most appropriate stages and means to raise their level of employability and aid access to the labour market.

Also under the responsibility of the PES in partnership with disability organisations there is a network of GIPs,  called GIP Inclusive especially geared towards working with people with disabilities.

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Guidance for immigrants

A protocol between PES (Instituto do Emprego e Formação Profissional) and the  national agency for migrants  supports a network of  professional integration offices (GIP) promoted by associations for the integration of immigrants and ethnic minorities. GIP are accredited and work in close cooperation with the job centres, helping unemployed youngsters and adults define and develop their path of integration or reintegration into the labour market:

  1. provision of professional information for young people and unemployed adults;
  2. support in active job search;
  3. support in finding training courses;
  4. personalised follow-up of the unemployed people during the integration or reintegration phase.

The  Choice programme (Programa Escolhas) is a national programme for people with a migrant background and for at-risk individuals. It was launched in  A new  generation  E9G was created in 2023. In the current E9G, the Choices Programme's mission is to promote social inclusion and integration, equal opportunities in education and employment, the development of skills, critical and creative thinking, valuing the educational power of the arts and sport, combating social discrimination, civic participation and strengthening social cohesion, and is aimed at all children and young people, particularly those from contexts of greater socio-economic vulnerability.

See section Career guidance for other groups.

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Guidance for other groups

Santa Casa da Misericórdia, an NGO, and Catholique University developed the project LIVE2WORK with the aim of increasing the chances of successful integration of people in situations of professional vulnerability. The project, which concluded in 2019, provides innovative and easy-to-use pedagogical resources for all those working directly with young adults in situations of professional vulnerability, including migrants and refugees. Recognising the particularities of the target groups, the project objectives were to provide advisors, trainers and mentors with knowledge, skills and strategies needed to promote and support the creation and development of life projects. This offers a good example of the kind of skills to be developed to support the vocational development of disadvantaged populations: self-knowledge, world-knowledge, transitional skills and decision-making. The main outputs of the project are a theoretical manual, a course guide and a tool box of scientific and professional relevance (further information can be found here).

The National Roma communities integration strategy (ENICC) is a result of the involvement of all ministries, civil society organizations, Roma communities and experts. Among its outputs is a guideline that defines guidance as a priority to contribute to:

  1. the increase of professional qualifications;
  2. the integration into the labour market;
  3. the development of community skills of Gypsies with a view to employability and socio-economic integration
  4. facilitating access of adult education and training.

Arribar Programme (Programa Arribar): aims to promote integrated responses for the inclusion of young people deprived of their liberty, aged 16 to 20 who are in Educational Centres and, between 16 and 24, for those who are in Prison Establishments through the development of personal, digital and social skills

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Country-specific report details

Country report type
Inventory of lifelong guidance systems and practices
Related Country
Related Project
Lifelong Guidance
Related Network
CareersNet
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