This contribution presents the results of a qualitative study conducted in Costa Rica on Career Guidance. The study underscores the relevance of Guidance in supporting vocational development as a pathway to expanded learning opportunities and access to decent work.
In Costa Rica, Guidance is implemented across the different modalities of secondary education through a comprehensive approach that integrates self-knowledge, knowledge of the environment, and decision-making. Its primary objectives include fostering skills essential for educational transitions, sustainable employability, and personal growth. To achieve this, systematic socio-educational processes are developed, complemented by activities such as vocational guidance fairs, exploratory workshops, and personalized support.
The study highlights the challenges faced by Guidance practitioners in responding to bureaucratic demands derived from policies that often conceive their work primarily in reactive or crisis-oriented terms. These conditions constrain the possibilities of developing guidance processes that strengthen critical thinking and empower individuals to assume an active role in their personal development and in broader processes of social transformation.
Finally, the study argues that Guidance represents a key axis for promoting employability, conceived not merely as adaptation to labor market demands but as a lifelong, contextualized process. From this perspective, strengthening the training of Guidance professionals and articulating their work with both the educational community and the labor market are crucial to fostering practices that encourage autonomy, critical thinking, and the construction of meaningful life projects based on narrative identity and conscious life design. In this sense, employability is redefined as a right to choose, to pursue decent work, and to contribute to sustainable development and social transformation.