The quality of guidance services gives rise to debate
Résumé
The quality of guidance services has become a crucial public policy-making issue in OECD member-countries. In order to improve this quality, some countries are setting up competence standards, introducing market mechanisms or specific managerial procedures. The highly segmented French system makes it difficult to improve the quality and user-friendliness of services rendered to citizens. Various national and regional initiatives have been launched, based on coherent lifelong vocational guidance policies. However, some debate has been focusing on the questions wich arise : is it preferable to develop all-inclusive, cross-sectional quality standards or specialized ones targeting specific groups ? Should the system be decentralized for the sake of greater proximity ? And what methods of assessment should be adopted ?