asked the Minister for Education if he will state the plans which have been formulated or which he intends to formulate for career guidance for young pupils.
Ceisteanna — Questions. Oral Answers. - Career Guidance.
47.
I would refer the Deputy to the reply given to similar questions on the 28th November, 1967, and on 23rd April, 1968.
Could the Minister indicate whether there will be an understanding between him and the Minister for Labour on the question of career guidance, bearing in mind the fact that there is great difficulty in placing apprentices and such like? What plans has he got?
We have initiated a career guidance course and we are training a number of teachers to act as career guidance officers. It is proposed to have 30 such teachers trained and we hope to have 60 more trained within the next six to nine months. At the moment we are recruiting further psychological so as to strengthen the psychological service. I agree with the Deputy that this problem of relating career guidance to the educational system and to the manpower requirements of the country is very important. At the moment, we have a joint committee of the Departments of Education and Labour working precisely on this problem and we hope to have the conclusions published in a fairly short while.