Evaluation of the new forms of student counselling (OHJA) 2022–2024

This evaluation is part of the Ministry of Education and Culture’s Programme to develop student counselling. The evaluation focuses on new or enhanced forms of student counselling brought about by the extension of compulsory education. The extension of compulsory education imposed a shared responsibility for guidance and supervision not only on educational institutions and schools but also on municipalities. The amendment to the Act on Compulsory Education also brought about changes in student counselling and the resources allocated to it and enhanced personal student counselling was introduced in basic education. While the reform of vocational education and training (2018) had underlined the obligation to provide guidance in upper secondary vocational education and training, the expansion of compulsory education also extended the reform to guidance provided at the second transition phase to the work life or higher education.

The OHJA evaluation will cover the continuum of student counselling related to the extension of compulsory education from basic education all the way to study guidance provided following the completion of an upper secondary qualification. This evaluation will cover basic education, basic education for adults, preparatory education for upper secondary education, liberal adult education, vocational education and training (VET) and general upper secondary education.

Quantitative data will be obtained from the Koski database maintained by the Finnish National Board of Education, the student admission register, registers maintained by schools and Statistic Finland’s register-based research data sets. The evaluation will draw on the findings of the Right to Learn and Right to Competence and Skills development programmes. Qualitative data will be collected throughout the project, for example by means of interviews.

Phase 1 of the evaluation (2022–2023): The evaluation will focus on the delivery of guidance and counselling as a whole, support for the completion of upper secondary qualifications and the guidance resources. Qualitative data will be collected in early 2023, and an interim report on the findings of the first phase will be published in 2023.

Phase 2 of the evaluation (2023–2024): The evaluation will focus especially on completion rates of qualifications, prevention of dropping out (effectiveness) and the role of improved guidance counselling and student well-being in helping to achieve the objectives of extending compulsory education.

All information collected during the evaluation will be handled confidentially, and any data protection risks will be minimised. Identifying individual persons or schools in the evaluation findings will not be possible. The evaluation will produce information on the focus areas Promoting equality and Increasing the functionality of the education system.

You can follow the progress of the project on FINEEC’s social media channels (LinkedIn, Twitter & Facebook) with the hashtag #OHJA_arviointi.