The design of educational and career guidance actions for secondary school students in the perspective of the PNRR: the proposal of the University of Padua

Abstract

This paper presents the experience of the University of Padua about the development of educational and career guidance paths dedicated to secondary school students, in line with the provisions of PNRR decree n. 934/2022. In particular, in order to design some of the activities for the 2023-24 school year, several trainers and designers working in the field were contacted, and they developed almost 70 different educational and career guidance activities on transversal topics.

We report here the reflections of four main designers, who were responsible for the design of some transversal training units for the school year 2023-24, collected through a written interview with six semi-structured questions and a scale question. The results show that the design process, which left wide creative space for individuals, even with constant supervision and coordination, was particularly appreciated. Overall satisfaction was high, with assessments of over 4 out of 5 for each proposed item.

The experience of the University of Padua with respect to educational and career guidance opportunities in response to the demands of the PNRR may serve as an example of practice for comparison and sharing with other Italian higher education realities and institutions that are taking up this educational challenge.