Dannelse og kompetence i det senmoderne vejledningsfelt

Master Thesis Abstract. M.Ed. DPU, Aarhus University
The focus of the thesis is the structure and culture of the Danish guidance system. Although its premises reflect the EU resolutions on the matter, the system still widely adopts Danish practice in its implementation. In Denmark we have formalised our guidance in two public systems: The UU, which is for the lower-secondary level youth, and the Studievalg, which is guidance for upper-secondary level students, who are to make a career choice of higher education. These guidance systems are highly regulated and evaluated for the effect of the guidance offered, the focus being to fulfil two goals: Firstly, an annual total of 95 per cent of all lower-secondary level pupils must move on to a formal education programme such as grammar school/high school or a vocational education. The second goal is that 50 per cent of all upper-secondary level graduates must get a higher education. For the purposes of fulfilling these goals, formal regulations are provided in order for the counsellor to keep focus on the counselling offered. The primary counselling objective is thus either the selection of a formal education programme by the transformation of informal competences, or the identification of how the client can achieve the necessary competences.
The individualisation in late modernity calls for institutions that can supply the help needed within all these narratives of different choices in the creation of one’s own life. This is one of the reasons why the need for counselling has become so outspoken in many forms: There has been a virtual explosion in tools such as mentoring, coaching, educational guidance and many more. On the one hand, there is the narrative of “you can be whatever you want to be”. And on the other, the thesis also proves that the path to finding a meaningful career is not at all that constructed. Many will actually find themselves doing the same thing as their parents. In this field of confusion in late modernity, there is a need for counselling, enabling the client to reflect upon more than just the attainment of competences.
The definition of competences, as laid down in Danish and EU regulations on lifelong learning and counselling, is merely concerned with how clients fulfil formal criteria in their way through the educational system and later on the labour market. However, what is at stake here is that the institutionalized public counselling system does not provide the counselling that is needed in the late-modern confusion.
The client has to learn how s/he makes a solid selection of education and career path, based on deeper things than just the need for certain skills in the labour market.
Therefore, I focus on the difference between formal and informal learning.
Formal learning is in some sense the same as competences, and it is the very nature of the counselling structure in Denmark. Informal learning is the knowledge of culture, of how to learn and of how to become competent.
The difference here lies in the fact that any person may have multiple competences, but from this it does not necessarily follow that s/he is competent. Therefore, I raise the question: How does learning and competences reflect the choice of education?
Does it suffice for an institutionalized counsellor to focus solely on the client’s formal competences? Or should s/he also focus on how to attain these competences?
The empiric research of the thesis is based on the relevant policy papers: The EU resolutions about lifelong learning and guidance and the Danish provisions on the matter of institutionalized counselling.
Through this empiric investigation it becomes clear that there is an overall focus on competences as the tool to fulfil the official system’s self-defined goals of the public counselling offered. But in focussing uniquely on how to attain competences, little or no attention is given to the matter of how to be competent. Thus, it is forgotten that being educated (Bildung) is the basis for the constructive use of one’s competences in practice, i.e. being competent.