The national centre established to provide information and develop policy on guidance in education is still in "a sharp learning curve to master its brief", according to John McCarthy, director of the three-year-old centre. A review of its work to date was launched by the Minister for Education and Science, Micheal Martin last week.

The National Centre for Guidance in Education (NCGE) is "like any three-year-old", says McCarthy. "It can understand more than it can speak, is more dependant than independent, and is still in a sharp learning curve to master its brief."

The centre "espouses the concept of life-long guidance to support life-long learning in an education context", he explains. "In practice the centre has been trying to support the work of guidance practitioners and workers in all areas of education."

The needs of guidance practitioners are identified through survey, discussion and feedback. "The centre has also been seeking to develop models of guidance practice in education settings where formal provision does not exist, such as programmes for early schoolleavers and adults."

Over the next three years, he says, the challenges are "to consolidate what has been achieved, to achieve what is planned and to support further developments in guidance provision in primary and higher education". Details of the NCGE's current programmes, project work and pubclications can be checked out on the web at http://www.iol.ie/ncge

Ed Riordan, NCGE chairman, says that "a central and continuing issue at second level is the impelementation in full of the recommendations of the centre's first report, Guidelines for the Practice of Guidance and Counselling in Schools".