The proposed set of Quality Indicators will be used in youth career centres and youth organizations, as well as by the assessing bodies inside and outside the organization. We propose a unique set of indicators, which is a combination of different types of indicators.

These quality indicators are related to the modern media literacy of young people and of disadvantaged youth. The idea is that nowadays youth career guidance undergoes drastic and vital shift – from career guidance to self-guidance skills. Traditional youth career guidance services are outdated - young people no longer need to go to the career guidance centre and expect information about existing jobs or education opportunities, rather they need to be trained by the counsellors how to search and find this information by themselves on the net.

First, new units of learning outcomes related to self-guidance and media literacy, as well as disadvantaged youth, were developed describing the knowledge, skills and competence of the career consultants which they need in order to provide young people guidance in applying the very new trends in self-guidance, using the advantages on the Internet and modern media. These learning outcomes are related to the training process and are about the individual consultant – what he/she knows and can do in terms of self-guidance and modern media literacy. Thus, as a second step in the frame of the project Quality indicators related to self-guidance and modern media literacy, as well as to disadvantaged youth, were developed that are related to the guidance service and are about all the consultants in the career center and the whole youth career counseling service. Their aim is to help leaders and managers of youth career centers monitor the quality of their services. All these Quality Indicators will enhance the quality management capacity of the partner countries VET systems.

Quality Indicator – “A figure, which is helpful for the assessment of a quality characteristic or the achievement of quality objectives”

Van den Berghe 1997b

Here we will use the Quality Model (QM) and Quality Framework developed in the frame of QA in YCC project. For example, the QM structures the indicators in different types – system-oriented and process-oriented, soft and hard etc. For describing the guidance process we are using 5-step approach to quality – a set of quality indicators applicable to each stage of the youth career guidance process, as follows:

   • CONTEXT (Environment, political, legal, economic situation)

   • INPUT (Resources, knowledge, experience)

   • PROCESS (During the consulting process)

   • OUTPUT (Concrete results attained)

   • OUTCOME (Long-term effects).

The entirely new quality indicators on modern media literacy and self-guidance can be used as a part of the Indicators Model developed in the frame of the former QA in YCC project (www.vqac.org). The new quality indicators on modern media literacy and self-guidance you can find on the next page of this website called “Quality indicators” and the Indicators Model you can find on p. 41 of the QA in YCC manual (http://www.scas.acad.bg/vqac/vqac/images/

manual_and_workbook/vqac_manual_view.pdf).

Join us on