Academic and Career Guidance Content (ACGC) is mandatory content for all Quebec students from Grade 5 to Secondary 5. It explicitly addresses the QEP's Broad Area of Learning: "Career Planning and Entrepreneurship". The content focusing on the themes "Self-Knowledge", "Knowledge of the World of School" and "Knowledge of the World of Work" as a continuum over the course of seven school years and is grounded in specific and observable Learning Strategies leading to explicit Expected Student Learning Outcomes (ESLO). Although the time allotted to each ESLO is not specified, it generally requires about 3 hours of class time to cover each content item.

The introduction of Academic and Career Guidance Content to Québec schools responds to a need for all students to benefit from accurate and thoughtful guidance in learning about themselves so that they can make informed choices as they move through the Youth Sector of the education system and into the World of Work or further Post-Secondary education. This content is designed so that classroom teachers can begin to prepare students, starting in Grade 5, by encouraging them to use the language of guidance in reflecting on themselves, the world of school and the world of work. Because they explore the ACGC in class, students will come to Guidance Counsellors better prepared. They will already have developed a portrait of themselves as individuals, as students and as members of society. Students will have a preliminary understanding of the academic and career choices that face them in the future, and will already have begun to match their interests and aptitudes to occupations that might interest them when they finish secondary school.

This more egalitarian approach means that Guidance Counsellors will be able to work with more students in an orientation capacity, assuming that each student will require less intervention time because he/she comes into career counselling better prepared. This content should extend the impact of school guidance services to reach all students, rather than a select few who actively seek out orientation.

Guidance Counsellors are well placed to support teachers in delivering the content to students. As experts in career orientation, Guidance Counsellors can ensure that occupational descriptions are accurate and that the academic pathways to the world of work are clearly explained. As professional partners, Guidance Counsellors play a central role in ensuring that the Academic and Career Guidance Content that students are exposed to is of the highest possible standard.

School Principals

• Convene a School Team responsible for developing a coordinated approach to delivering the ACGC to all students

• Decide who will be responsible for teaching each of the ACGC items

• Decide which ACGC will be covered in each grade level

• Present Governing Board with the proposed plan for implementing ACGC

Governing Board

• Each year, approves the plan for implementing ACGC in the school

Guidance Counsellors and Pedagogical Consultants

• Participate in the School Team and assure the accuracy of career and academic orientation information

• Assist teachers in developing engaging and accurate lessons that achieve the ELSO for each ACGC item

• Assist teachers in accessing career orientation resources such as MyBlueprint

• Coordinate between Cycles and schools to assure consistency in the delivery of ACGC from year to year and school to school

Teachers

• Participate in the school team and assure that ACGC is infused into required subjects in a meaningful way

• Choose the most effective approach to use so that all students have access to ACGC, either by using preexisting learning situations or by developing their own lesson plans that infuse the content into daily planning for academic subjects

• Collaborate with Non-Teaching Professionals in order to assure the accuracy of information about academic pathways and occupations