GUIDANCE counsellors should become pro-active in the use of information technology, delegates to last week's conference of the Guidance in the Information Society were told. Anders Lovn, counsellor educator at Lund University, Sweden, warned that the profession had been too passive.

Counsellors should be ready for the development of new software programmes. They should familiarise themselves with the potential of information technology.

He said that IT allowed efficient information storing and retrieval. It could also provide new perspectives and increase the status of counsellors.

However, said Lovn, there is a risk that the use of a computer may direct an interview and there may be an over-reliance in subjective results, especially with so-called matching programmes which take a selection of characteristics, exam results, etc and come up with the "ideal" course or career. There may be a loss of nuances as computers do not understand human relations, added Lovn. Ambiguities are not investigated.

Since 1985 the use of IT in guidance has been the subject of three major conferences sponsored mainly by the European Commission. This conference, which was attended by 185 delegates from Ireland and the EU, was organised by the National Centre for Guidance in Education with the support of the European Union and the Department of Education.

Klaus Draxler, of the EU Directorate General Education, Training and Youth, told the conference that the emphasis is shifting from the comparatively well-mapped field of school guidance to guidance in response to individual demand which is much less well-circumscribed.

"Guidance, along with training, must become an instrument for managing every person's personal and occupational projects," said Draxler. "There must be action to accompany the process of occupational integration and retraining of workers."

"I should like to reaffirm that lifelong learning requires lifelong guidance," he added.