The Ministers of Education passed a Resolution on strengthening guidance throughout life (2004), which highlighted the need to strengthen co-ordination and structures for policy and systems development at national level, involving a broad range of stakeholders, and to increase European co-operation in the field.

An initiative to support projects that developed European networks of national guidance forums was proposed by the European Commission to Member States in 2003 in the context of the Joint Actions 2004 programme that linked education, training and youth programmes.

It was felt that such European networks would:

• Enable mutual learning and support to take place at European level
through sharing of good practice
• Act as a stimulus for national forum development
• Draw attention to relevant policy development at European level
• Enable collaborative action at European level among partners and
networks
• Identify and communicate policies and actions at Community level, and
• Foster efficient use of effort by the national forums at both national and
European levels.

This proposal, which became a concrete reality through the selection of two European network projects from Joint Actions 2004 Call for Proposals, can be viewed as testing the value of and preparing foundations for a future thematic network for lifelong guidance (European forum) in the context of the post 2007 EU programmes and initiatives.

Two pilot projects were selected. The first - Medsui – Developing Guidance For A In Six Member States - is led by the Guidance Council in the UK and includes Malta, Estonia, Denmark, Slovenia, the United Kingdom and Ireland. The project coordinators have met four times in

1. UK
2. Ireland
3. Malta
4. Slovenia

The second is led by Steiriche Volkswirtschaftliche Geselschaft in Austria and includes; Austria, the Czech Republic, France, Finland, Germany and Poland.

In 2004 the establishment of the National Guidance Forum in Ireland was announced by the Minister for Education and Science, Noel Dempsey T.D. at the NCGE hosted conference Lifelong Guidance: Harmonising Policy and Practice. The first ever resolution on Guidance was agreed by the EU Council of Ministers and the Resolution invites member states -

“to seek to ensure effective co-operation between providers of guidance at national, regional and local levels in the provision of guidance services, in order to widen access and to ensure the coherence of provision, especially to groups at risk"..more on National Guidance Forum in Ireland