Keynote title: More Than Skills: Integrating Career Guidance and Well-being into the Core of VET Practice – supporting vocational belonging through career guidance in everyday teaching and training.
Career guidance is often framed as an additional support service—an individual session, a leaflet, or an optional module. But in this keynote, I will argue that career guidance and well-being are not extras; they are essential parts of the core mission of vocational education and training (VET). Teachers and workplace trainers, together with career guidance professionals, play a vital role in helping students navigate choices, see themselves in a vocation, and experience a sense of belonging. Career guidance is not a one-off intervention; it is a relational, ongoing process embedded in everyday teaching and training.
I will explore how career guidance can contribute to vocational belonging—a sense of fitting in and finding meaning in a professional path—which in turn supports student well-being, engagement, and retention. Rather than merely opening doors to endless options or focusing narrowly on skill acquisition, career guidance in VET can help students connect their personal histories with the lives they might lead as skilled professionals. This requires us to rethink guidance as a shared professional responsibility and as a central element in building inclusive, caring VET practices.
I will discuss how integrating career guidance and well-being into the core of VET aligns with broader sustainability goals. Supporting vocational belonging and well-being is key to socially sustainable VET, because education should not only train hands and minds, but also nurture people’s capacity to live meaningful, situated, and dignified lives through their work
Links:
UC-Viden: https://www.ucviden.dk/da/persons/bo-klindt-poulsen
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/boklindtpoulsen/
Orcid: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9299-1021