Career guidance and counseling groups for pupils in the 9th grade (3rd year of secondary school) started functioning in the KESPEMs, for the first time, in the school year 2011-12. Many questions arise in the minds of children who are finishing secondary school: On the one hand, their personal wishes or goals, that often are not yet clearly defined, and, on the other hand, the difficulties of the labor market and the wishes of the parents that are not always the same as the ones of their children, make it difficult for these children to reach a career decision, and generate conflicts. The career guidance and counseling groups try to assist the adolescents in this complicated decision making process which would affect the rest of their lives. Educators who have undergone special training try to help adolescents in these issues:
- Discovering personal aptitudes, inclinations, interests.
- Ways of making important decisions for the life of an adolescent.
- Getting informed about the world of employment, and about developments in our age that affect the labor market.
From December 2011 to May 2012, 123 pupils attended these seminars of career guidance and counseling.
Detailed figures on attendance at the seminars of career counseling for the school year 2011-12.
In the current school year, 2012-13, the seminars for career guidance and counseling continue, for a second year in a row, to be offered to groups that have been formed at the KESPEMs of Komotini, Xanthi, Iasmos, Selero and Echinos.
The seminars are intended for pupils in the last year of secondary school and in the first years of high school. The groups began to meet in October and, as of November 2012, 82 pupils have attended these meetings/seminars.
Detailed figures on attendance at the seminars of career counseling for the school year 2012-13.
Career guidance and counseling seminar on study choices for KESPEMs' pupils (2015).
On 6 March 2015, forty regular students of the 6th grade of high school, who are going to take part in the National exams for their entrance in the University, attended at the KESPEM of Xanthi a career guidance seminar on study choices from the head of the ΚΕ.ΣΥ.Π (Guidance and Counceling Center of Xanthi), Mr. Bakalidis. At the same time at the ΚΕ.ΣΥ.Π of Komotini, 15 students attended a career guidance seminar with the head of the Guidance and Counceling Center of Komotini, Mr. Karakasidis. All the students, that are attending classes at the KESPEMs, when they were informed about the seminars wrote down their questions in order to give the chance to the heads of the Centers to organize their presentations.
PUBLICATION OF A JOURNAL
The journal “Career Guidance at the KESPEMs” was the end result of a joint working plan, based on which all the career counseling groups worked together.
Its publication and release became possible thanks to the cooperation of 45 children from 7 groups of the KESPEMs of Ehinos, Iasmos, Komotini, Xanthi and Selero. The members of these groups, albeit amateurs, worked with a professional consistency, and interviewed in total 14 individuals, each distinguished in his/her profession. With the methodical guidance of their teachers, the children managed to complete a demanding task – and in an exemplary way at that. Through this process, they familiarized themselves with the new technologies -- through, for instance, participating in teleconferences -- prepared questionnaires, talked to professionals and got acquainted from up close with many professions, observed and wrote down their advantages, disadvantages and what studies each of these professions requires. They cooperated with each other, organized the information they gathered and processed it with their teachers, dividing it according to the basic themes of career counseling.
In the school year 2013-2014, the Career guidance and counseling groups for pupils are taking place only at the KESPEM of Komotini. In the seminars are taking part 13 students.
