With the adoption of the new statute of the ESS the vocational guidance service name was changed to vocational orientation. The change in the name reflects the different concept of work.

6.1.1. Vocational orientation for schoolchildren

Several changes were introduced in 1999. The programme of work was for the first time harmonised with the Ministry of Education and Sport. Vocational orientation for schoolchildren must be provided in partnership between the fields of education and work; to achieve this an interdepartmental expert group was formed (by the ESS, Education Institute, Ministry of Education and Sport, Ministry of Labour, Family and Social Affairs, Education Office), which harmonise activities in the field. Some of the new features with regard to the work performed by vocational counsellors at the ESS are connected to the findings made by the group.

Lectures and team consultations which the Guidelines for Counselling Work in Schools list as a contribution made by the ESS to the service of vocational orientation for schoolchildren, took place according to plans. Counsellors, who are psychologists by profession, carried out 972 team sessions involving 20,623 eight-grade pupils. They also gave 76 lectures for primary-school pupils, 6 for secondary-school students, 182 for parents and 271 informative and training sessions for school counsellors.

The ESS's vocational counsellors conducted 11,877 one-to-one vocational interviews and provided information in 13,156 cases of queries. Of the total amount of sessions, 4,500 involved primary-school pupils, 4,992 secondary-school students and 2,385 university students.

6.1.2. Vocational guidance for adults

The majority of adults requiring vocational guidance are unemployed. Adults attend individual consultations and request information in a growing number of cases. In 1999, 26,517 individual informative sessions and consultations were conducted.

Table XVIII: Number of one-to-one sessions with schoolchildren and adults in 1999

6.1.3. Vocational Information and Counselling Centre (VICC)

The Vocational Information and Counselling Centre became fully active in 1999; in June it was included in the PHARE Trail Vocational Information and Counselling Centre project.

The VICC complements other activities of the ESS; it is targeted at young people making their first decision on future occupation, adults (unemployed and those in employment) who are changing their professional career or wish to continue education, want information on possibilities for financial assistance as well as for vocational counsellors and employment counsellors who need information in order to be able to attain better work results as well as for any other individual who may be interested.

In 1999 the VICC in Ljubljana received 5,557 visitors.

The VICC was also visited by representatives of various institutions (Adult Education Centre of Slovenia, Vocational Education and Training Centre and others) with which the VICC maintains close contacts in the area of information exchange. The VICC was also visited by almost all counsellors working in primary and secondary schools. Presentations were organised for those who took part in workshops (job clubs, Project Learning for Young People, etc.), seminars (students of the Faculty of Social Sciences and Faculty of Fine Arts) and others. As part of the international conference on vocational orientation the VICC received representatives from various European countries, including Croatia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Bulgaria.

The VICC library currently stocks:

• 300 descriptions of occupations of various levels of difficulty and from various fields
• information on available courses and training at all secondary schools, higher professional schools and universities both in regular and part-time education, postgraduate studies, as well as all current school vacancies
• information on possibilities of finding accommodation in student homes
• information on the possibilities of additional education and training, vacancies for adult education
• information on various forms of financial assistance, from national, Zois, company scholarships to loans, funds and foundations
• other tools and instructions on how to seek employment, computer programmes for designing one's own study path, and videotapes on groups of professions, individual professions and on seeking employment, individual schools
• other resources of education, employment, seeking employment, legislation and regulation governing the area
• over 100 various video presentations.

6. 2.

SCHOLARSHIPS

The scholarship system has been regulated by the EUIA for a number of years now. The new EUIA introduced changes and new features which were defined in detail by the new Rules on Scholarships.

Company scholarships are granted by organisations and employers in keeping with their needs. The EUIA did not bring any changes to the area of company scholarships. The law only regulates the minimum scholarship amount, all the rest is left to the providers of scholarships. Every spring the ESS publishes a special publication containing a joint public tender for company scholarship.

National scholarships are intended for apprentices and students who otherwise would not be able to afford to study. The main objective is to improve educational structure of financially-disadvantaged groups of people and thus their employability. Applications for national scholarship may be submitted by apprentices and students who do not receive any other scholarship, student loan from Article58a of the EUIA or other financial assistance in the equivalent of at least one-year amount of the basic national scholarship and who do not exceed the income limit set by the EUIA. They are intended for Slovene citizens and those of Slovene origin (though without Slovene citizenship) for education in Slovenia and exceptionally also abroad, under the principle of mutuality. There is an age limit for applicants. Applicants who are employed or registered in the record of unemployed people at the ESS, who perform a commercial activity, are the owner or part-owner of a commercial company where the profit before tax deductions and reliefs and the mandatory social security contributions included, with regard to the applicant's ownership stake in the company, exceeded the annual total of guaranteed wages for that year, may not apply for national scholarships.

Zois scholarships are intended for extremely gifted apprentices and students for study in Slovenia and exceptionally also abroad. Applications for Zois scholarships may be submitted by Slovene citizens, people of Slovene origin without Slovene citizenship and also foreigners with permanent residence permits, under the condition of mutuality. Applications for this scholarship cannot be submitted by the candidate himself: it has to be made by the head of the educational institution. The candidate who meets the criteria on exceptional intellectual or artistic talent and who had at least "very good" results in school (apprentices, secondary-school students) or whose average mark is at least 8 (for students) and have achieved a publicly acknowledged success or an exceptional achievement in the last two academic years are awarded Zois scholarship regardless of the financial status of their family. The scholarship fund also provides part of the funding for scholarships from the Munda Fund.

Figure 21: Scholarships in Slovenia by academic year, 1986/87 - 1998/99

6.2.1. Company scholarships

In April 1999 the ESS for the fourth year running published a joint tender for company scholarships for the 1999/2000 academic year. Despite the extended deadline the response by organisations and employers was poor. The ESS collected and published 2,174 scholarships from 307 employers which is 429 less than in the 1998/99 academic year. Most of them were offered by the state as the Government and some ministries offered 602 scholarships, mostly for the seventh level of education.

6.2.2. National scholarships

With the national scholarship system the state ensures that young people who would not otherwise be able to afford to study can do so.

To begin with, when there were more company scholarships available, the aim was to provide young people from low-income backgrounds with temporary assistance to cover the period during which they were unable to obtain a company scholarship.

In the 1990s the number of national scholarships began to increase in proportion with the rapid fall in the number of company scholarships. National scholarships became a substitute for company scholarships. To begin with the system was quite effective, even though the income limit was much tighter, but was still linked to the average wage. In 1991 it was linked to the guaranteed wage. The number of students receiving national scholarships was highest in the 1993/94 academic year, when it was 47,830; after that year their numbers began to fall. This fall in the number of students entitled to scholarship was mainly due to the increasingly tough conditions for its acquisition, as the guaranteed wage keeps falling with regard to the average wage. In the 1996/97 academic year there were 46,210 scholarship recipients, in the 1997/98 academic year 45,803, in the 1998/99 academic year 43,136 and in the 1999/2000 academic year, 39,762 recipients were recorded as on 31 December 1999.

6.2.3. Zois scholarships for gifted students in 1999

Zois scholarships, awarded to gifted students, are part of the overall attention and care given to gifted students and are designed to encourage their talents in intellectual or artistic spheres, with the expectation that this social assistance will be rewarded later on with outstanding achievements which will ensure the continued economic, cultural, scientific, technological and general social progress of the country. From a social aspect it is a waste for any talented young person not to be able to make full use of his/her potential; it is a much greater waste if the best qualified personnel cannot find suitable employment or do not have an opportunity to develop their professional careers.

The data on the number of students receiving scholarships indicates that the trend of the growing number of Zois scholarship recipients, typical throughout all previous year, has continued in 1999. The number of recipients increased from 10,259 at the end of 1998 to 11,222 at the end of 1999. Of the total number of recipients of scholarships from the ESS the recipients of the Zois scholarships amount to a good fifth (22%). In comparison with 1998 the share of Zois scholarship recipients increased by around 3%, which is the result of two phenomena: the increase in the number of Zois scholarship recipients and of a simultaneous fall in the number of national scholarship recipients. From the entire generation of secondary-school and university students the top 6% of students are receiving Zois scholarships.

The average Zois scholarship in December 1999 for a secondary-school pupil staying at home during study was SIT 17,136; for those commuting to school on a daily basis, SIT 26,436; for those not living at home during study, SIT 33,035 and for those who study abroad SIT 38,517. For a university student staying at home during study, the scholarship was SIT 24,083; for those commuting, SIT 34,173; for those not living at home, SIT 39,814 and for those who study abroad, SIT 50,688.

Every year the ESS publishes an extensive publication, the "Zois Scholarship Holders' Yearbook" whose aim is to introduce Zois scholarship recipients to employers. In the yearbook they introduce themselves to possible employers; the latest generation of recipients also published their presentations on the ESS web pages. A survey among employers showed that presentations on the Internet are more useful for staffing purposes than the printed yearbook. The ESS thus decided to introduce the fifth generation on the Internet only and did not publish the yearbook in a printed form. The fifth yearbook which is the third to be published on the Internet introduced 415 Zois scholarship graduates from all areas of study.

Pursuant to Article 58a of the EUIA the Minister of Labour, Family and Social Affairs on 30 July 1999 published the Rules on Student Loans with which it laid down the legal foundation for a new service provided by the ESS - the subsiding of the real interest rate of purpose-linked loans to students to cover the costs of living and school fees.

In line with the Rules, subsidised loans may also be granted by those banks which have acquired a concession license.

A total of 2,429 applicants applied to the public tender, the largest number of them (694 or 28.5%) for lot A (four-year loan), 664 (27.3%) for lot D (1 year loan), 598 (24.6%) for lot C (3 year loan) and 473 (19.4%) for lot B (2 year loan).