On 27 May 2026, career guidance practitioners, researchers and policy experts from Czechia, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia gathered online to discuss a question that is becoming increasingly important across Europe: how can career education be meaningfully integrated into school curricula?
The webinar, organised within the framework of the Central and Eastern European Career Guidance Forum, offered a comparative look at current reforms, national approaches and implementation challenges in the region. While the situations differ from country to country, a common concern emerged throughout the discussion: career education is gaining visibility in policy documents, but its practical implementation remains uneven and fragile.
A recurring theme was the place of Career Management Skills (CMS) in education systems. Drawing on recent Cedefop definitions, speakers discussed CMS not only as a set of employability skills, but as broader competences enabling people to navigate learning, work and life transitions. Several presentations also highlighted the need for a more critical understanding of career education, one that does not simply prepare students to adapt to labour market demands, but also helps them reflect on social inequalities, uncertainty and the changing nature of work.
The Romanian presentation showed one of the most explicit curriculum models in the region. Career education is included through dedicated compulsory subjects focused on counselling, personal development and career guidance. However, speakers also pointed to the familiar gap between curriculum design and delivery capacity, especially regarding the limited number of counsellors and uneven implementation between schools.
In Czechia, recent curriculum reforms are placing stronger emphasis on career development, social-emotional learning and students’ ability to manage transitions. Petr Chaluš presented how the new curriculum framework expands the educational area previously centred on “Man and the World of Work” towards a broader perspective integrating personal development, reflection and career planning.
The Slovak contribution focused on ongoing curricular reform and the educational area “People and the World of Work”. Particular attention was given to career portfolios, professional literacy and the integration of AI literacy into career decision-making processes. The reform attempts to strengthen continuity across educational cycles and move beyond one-off orientation activities.
From Hungary, Tibor Bors Borbély-Pecze presented a more critical analysis of the current situation. While career-related competences exist within the National Core Curriculum, they remain fragmented, inconsistently implemented and heavily dependent on individual schools and teachers. He also highlighted the strong relationship between career education and social justice, noting that disadvantaged students often depend entirely on schools for access to guidance and career learning opportunities.
Despite national differences, several shared tensions appeared across all four countries. Participants discussed the difficulty of balancing dedicated career education subjects with cross-curricular approaches, the stronger presence of career learning in vocational education compared to general education, and the persistent lack of teacher preparation for supporting career development learning.
Another important point concerned the political fragility of curriculum reforms. Educational reforms require long-term continuity, while political priorities and institutional structures often change much faster. As several speakers noted, career education can easily become marginalised when schools face increasing curriculum pressure and limited resources.
The webinar also reflected a growing regional cooperation among career guidance associations and experts in Central and South-Eastern Europe. Beyond comparing systems, the discussion created space for a more collective reflection on the future of career education in the region and the role of professional communities in shaping it.