New Committee for the ICG

The ICG council formally agreed to the establishment of a Career Education committee in June. The inaugural meeting of the committee took place on July 26^th at Stourbridge. The first job of the committee was to elect a chair. I never suspected that when I agreed to be involved in this new committee that the job of chairing the group would fall to me. However I am delighted to have been elected and am looking forward to working with such enthusiastic colleagues. Stewart Farrar has been appointed Secretary.

Committee members are drawn from a diverse range of professional backgrounds and include 14-19 Curriculum Managers from Connexions and Careers Services as well as those working in the fields of HE, adult guidance and members from other professional bodies. Sue Holden the Head of Professional Development for the ICG will act as adviser to the committee. The new committee will meet three times a year.

The second job of the new committee was to agree a definition of career education, which would then inform our work. We took as a starting point the definition contained within ' Supporting Young People; enabling informed career decisions' (copy available on ICG website). For the purposes of the committee's work, this has been amended, and defines career education as 'programmes and activities of learning to help people to develop the skills necessary to manage their career and life pathway. These include accessing and making effective use of career information and guidance'. With this in mind, the committee was able to agree a list of themes to work on. These include;

• Accrediting CEG quality awards
• Working to influence the professional development of staff delivering careers education
• Providing opportunities to share useful materials
• Enlarging the range of training and development opportunities in the field of careers education

This is a big agenda for our new committee and we hope that many of you will want to become involved in some of these projects. We will keep you informed of these opportunities and developments using CGT, the ICG Website and through emails to members.

Nicki Moore