Training in Careers Guidance at UWE
(Full Time Award)
TRAINING IN CAREERS GUIDANCE AT UWE
UWE has been training Careers Advisers to work in Career Companies,
Connexions Services, FE and HE Colleges and the private sector for
over 30 years.
THE QUALIFICATION IN CAREER GUIDANCE
The Qualification in Career Guidance (QCG) is the current UK wide
professional qualification for Careers Advisers awarded by the Institute
of Career Guidance (ICG).
UWE offers a range of Full and Part-time programmes in Guidance, two
of which lead directly to the Qualification in Career Guidance (QCG) as
described below.
UWE PROGRAMMES
The Postgraduate Diploma in Careers Guidance (QCG) (Full Time)
The PG Diploma in Careers guidance arranges all professional skills assessments by appropriately qualified staff
and the support and supervision in appropriate workplaces necessary for the QCG.
The Postgraduate Diploma in Vocational/Educational Guidance (QCG)
(Part Time) The Post Graduate Diploma in Vocational/Educational guidance QCG is only available to
candidates already working in a guidance agency which offers careers guidance. This is because the employer must
provide much of the work-based assessments by appropriately qualified staff and support and supervision in an
appropriate workplace.
Both the Full and Part Time Postgraduate Diploma in Careers Guidance
will lead to the QCG and qualify graduates to work as Careers Advisers
and Personal Advisers in Connexions Services.
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FULL TIME GUIDANCE AWARD
Postgraduate Diploma in Careers Guidance (QCG)
This is an intensive nine month programme (September - June) requiring
students to undertake several work-based attachments in Connexions
Services, Schools and Community Agencies as well as college attendance.
On graduation, students will complete their professional training as Careers
Advisers, Personal Advisers or both, in an appropriate guidance agency.
The award has 22 places.
Fees
The 2010-11 fee for the Postgraduate Diploma in Careers Guidance (QCG)
(Full Time) is £3,100. Fees increase year on year – please enquire for details.
(Please note that the UWE fees for overseas and offshore students are
higher. Please visit: http://courses.uwe.ac.uk/x02542/ for up-to-date
course and fee information).
In order to register with the Institute of Career Guidance, (the awarding body
for the professional qualification, the QCG), students pay a further fee. The
2010-11 fee was £315 and is subject to change for subsequent years.
Funding
Most students take out Career Development Loans – details available from
Banks. They could also investigate discretionary LEA awards, traineeships –
occasionally offered by Career/Connexions Services, Charitable Trusts
(Directories in Libraries).
In some years, postgraduate means-tested bursaries may also be available
through UWE. There is also an Access to Learning Fund which may be
available for students who are in financial difficulty. Please contact our
Student Advice and Welfare Service (SAWS) on 0117 32 82822 for more
information.
Entry requirements
Students will normally possess a degree or equivalent from a recognised
university. However, students who do not meet the minimum academic entry
requirements but have significant life and/or work experience will be
considered on an individual basis (and will be asked to send in a short essay,
following their selection day).
Experience
Any experience of working with people in a helping or advisory capacity, or
with young people in any capacity, either paid or voluntary, would be an
advantage though not a requirement.
Applications from members of under-represented groups are most welcome.
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Structure of the Award
The programme delivers a very full, initial, professional training and is
therefore demanding in terms of both attendance and study time.
Practice and Work-based learning
From early in the programme students will be involved in guidance activity.
Interviewing and group work with young people, visits to employers, training
providers and community agencies as well as support for schools, will be
regular activities, interspersed with workshops and lectures from key speakers
in the profession.
There will also be work-based placements in Connexions/Careers Services (3
weeks in November and 3 weeks in April/May) and in Schools, Further
Education and Community Agencies throughout the year.
[One Connexions/Careers placement may involve being away from the
Bristol area; where possible we endeavour to organise placements
within travelling distance of your home].
Modules
Learning is organised into the following module areas:
 Guidance Theory and Practice – Interviewing
 Guidance Theory and Practice – Group work
 The Context of Guidance
 Careers Education
 Understanding the Opportunity Structure
Assessment
There are no exams.
Most modules are assessed by one written assignment of between 3,000 and
5,000 words. Three modules have additional skills requirements normally
assessed by observation, such as Interviewing and Group work. One module
is assessed by a short presentation to a group of peers.
Portfolio - Qualification in Career Guidance (QCG)
The assessments generated through UWE’s Postgraduate Diploma are
collated during the year to form an individual student portfolio. This forms the
foundation for professional development when entering the profession.
Credit Rating
The Postgraduate Diploma in Careers Guidance (QCG) is normally creditrated at 120 ‘M’ points, but some Level 3 modules may also be acceptable.
This may contribute substantially, through Accredited Learning, to a Masters
Degree at UWE. On completion of the Postgraduate Diploma, students can
undertake a research module and a dissertation to gain an MA in Guidance.
Selection Process
All candidates, except for those living abroad at the time of application, must
be interviewed at UWE, Bristol.
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For more detailed information please read the Frequently Asked
Questions section below. If you then have further questions please
contact:
Nicola Liles – Education Admissions Team
Tel: 0117 32 84126
E-mail: Nicola.liles@uwe.ac.uk
Mary Dempsey – Full Time Programme Leader
Tel: 0117 32 84176
E-Mail: Mary.Dempsey@uwe.ac.uk
You can apply online for this course at: http://courses.uwe.ac.uk/X02542
Application forms for the full time award are available from:
Admissions & International Development
UWE, Frenchay Campus
Coldharbour Lane, Bristol, BS16 1QY
Tel: 0117 32 83333
E-mail: admissions@uwe.ac.uk
If you are interested in applying for the Postgraduate Diploma in Careers
Guidance (QCG), please return the application form to the address above. No
offers will be able to be confirmed without receipt of satisfactory references.
Postgraduate Diploma in Careers Guidance (QCG) (Full Time)
Frequently Asked Questions:
1) How much does the award cost?
Please enquire for the latest fees. To give you an indication, the fee for UWE's
PG Diploma in 2010-11 was £3100. In order to register with the Institute of
Career Guidance (the awarding body for the professional qualification, the
QCG) a further fee is required (£315 in 2009-10).
2) When should I apply?
You can apply from September and we will accept applications up until the
following May or even June. After this, we may still accept applications for a
waiting list place, in case applicants withdraw.
3) What funding is available?
Students are eligible for Career Development loans and in recent years most
students have taken these up.
4) What are the attendance patterns?
When students are not on placement, the programme is scheduled for
attendance on Monday to Thursday each week and Friday is a study day.
There is a bi-weekly pattern:
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Week 1 would involve a wide range of activities, not necessarily ‘full’ days, for
example:
Monday am: Interviewing lecture; pm: professional speaker on Working with
Deaf Clients.
Tuesday: working with a group of young people from a local secondary
school. This may involve you with your peers going to the school,
accompanying the youngsters back to UWE on the bus, delivering group work
on a careers topic, interviewing young people and getting feedback from a
professional about your skills development.
Wednesday: visiting a construction company to discuss the range of work,
plus information on recruitment and training routes.
Thursday am: helping out on a school Widening Participation morning;
pm: interviewing personal advisers for your research.
Week 2 would involve lectures and speakers, often on themed topics, for
example two days on the Opportunity Structure.
Days would be more likely to run between 09.30 and 16.30. Some time would
also be set aside for the preparation of practice and it would be up to your
work teams to decide when and where this happened.
Because so much of the work depends on the 'real world’, students need to
be flexible about how they arrange their work and need good organisational
skills to use their time well.
5) What about attendance when on placement?
During the periods of placement in Connexions, careers companies and
schools students will need to adhere to the organisation's attendance
requirement, which is normally office hours with occasional evenings, eg
Parents’ Evenings.
6) Are there exams?
There are no exams. There is a mixture of assessment types. We assess
written assignments, presentations and professional skills such as
interviewing and group work with young people.
7) What is the ratio of practical to academic work?
It is very high; you will spend at least two thirds of the award in the following
professional practice activities:
 Placement periods in the Connexions / Careers Service and/or other
guidance agencies, Secondary Schools and Community agencies.
 Visiting Employers and Training and Education providers.
 Working directly, delivering interviews and group work to young people
from local schools.
The concentration of lecture input varies throughout the year but averages two
out of every eight days’ activity.
8) I haven’t been to University before; will I cope with the written work?
This isn’t an easy question to answer as some people who have recently
completed study in Higher Education can find the written work hard and
equally some people with no or dated HE experience seem to manage very
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well. If you don’t have a recognized HE qualification we would ask you to
complete a short assignment prior to being accepted onto the programme.
This is not a test, but we care for the wellbeing of our students and don’t want
any of the work to cause undue stress. We want our students to succeed and
are conscious that there are cost implications. The university also runs a
number of other support programmes such as study skills and ICT skills.
9) Can you explain the placements?
Currently the two longer placements, both in Connexions / Careers Services,
are for periods of three weeks in November and April/May. We ask candidates
to indicate where they could attend such a placement once they have been
offered a place.
A shorter school placement occurs in January and the Community Agency
placements are in March. Increasingly, students also have opportunities to
undertake short placements in organisations that hold particular interest for
them eg HE/FE Careers services, Special Schools etc.
The programme tutors arrange Connexions, Careers Service and School
placements. The student normally arranges other placements.
10) What are the job prospects like?
For the last twenty years close to 90 % of students successfully completing
this award has gained employment as career guidance workers or in highly
related employment. The majority find work as professional advisers in
Connexions/Careers companies. A smaller group enter Further or Higher
Education, schools and the private sector as Career Advisers. A range of
agencies including charities such as RNID, RNIB and MENCAP employ
career advisers, as do projects working to rehabilitate specific groups.
Increasingly our students are obtaining posts as Learning Mentors and Aim
Higher Co-ordinators, Engagement workers and in other areas of the
Government's inclusion policies.
The Department of Education has made every effort to make this flyer as accurate as possible at the
time of going to press. We will do our best to delivery study programmes as described in the flyer.
However there may be changes following publication and we reserve the right to make changes to the
content or mode of delivery of a programme.
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