THOUGHTS ON PROFESSIONALISM: A

thoughts on professionalism

A REACTION TO THE RECENT PHOENIX SPECIAL ISSUE

PROFESSOR PETE ROBERTSON, Edinburgh Napier University, responds to the recent issue of Phoenix which focused on professionalism. He asks to whether career development in HE is a separate profession or part of a wider careers profession. Exploring some of the overlaps, he challenges the practitioners in HE to think through the implications of their position.

Issue 165 of Phoenix (July 2022) addressed professionalism. There were articles about the notion of professionalism, the training of practitioners, and the operation of quality assurance frameworks for higher education (HE) career services. All good stuff, but one thing was striking in its absence from the discussion of professionalism in HE careers work – the elephant not in the room.

What I am referring to is the relationship between the profession in HE, and the profession in other sectors across the UK. This is not straightforward, and it does raise some difficult questions. This article very briefly highlights some of these. Another defining feature of professions is their initial professional training. In the 20th century, HE career services often employed industry specialists rather than trained career advisers. In the 21st century, it has become more common for practitioners to have professional training. Some are trained through AGCAS structures, including qualifications currently hosted at the University of Warwick. That said, there are many practitioners in university settings who have attended initial professional training programmes linked to the Career Development Institute (CDI) at other universities and achieved a QCD or equivalent qualification. So, for some practitioners in HE their professional identity is defined by a professional qualification shared with a wider professional community.

REGULATORY BARGAIN

Arguably one of the defining features of a profession is its ‘ regulatory bargain ’ with government. In return for a certain privilege and status, a profession agrees to accept responsibility for self-regulation, and the associated costs. This bargain has been difficult to establish in career development in the UK (Gough & Neary, 2020).Different sectors are at different points on a journey towards, or sometimes slipping away from, professionalisation. It is hard to make progress on a regulatory bargain without the participation of the HE sector in a unified profession. For example, in the event that the wider careers profession chooses to pursue chartered status – something that is currently being explored - then this might be hard to achieve without a definition of unified profession that encompasses HE.

PART OF AN ECO-SYSTEM

Unlike services in schools and for young people, HE careers services are relatively sheltered from government policy that directly addresses policy for career service delivery (although there are other institutional and sectoral pressures that shape services). But what happens when policymakers begin to see HE career services as part of a national eco-system, and expect them to conform to a wider vision for service design? This is exactly what is happening in Scotland, driven by Skills Development Scotland (SDS), the national careers service, but with the support of the Scottish Government (SDS, 2022). Will HE services comply or simply ignore these expectations?

Is careers work in higher education a separate profession, or is it part of a wider career development profession in the UK?

Careers work in the HE sector consistently delivers to a high standard and mutual support between practitioners and services is exemplary: other sectors could learn a lot from this. It is better resourced than services in other post-school sectors. But relative to this strength, the HE sector makes little proactive contribution to the wider careers community in the UK. If you take the view that HE careers work is part of a wider community, then the question that logically follows is: what responsibilities does that relationship entail?

p.robertson@napier.ac.uk