Changes in the nature and availability of work and the corresponding demands on workers to engage in repeated occupational and learning transitions throughout life have heralded a rise in the importance of and necessity for the provision of career services across the lifespan. Intense interest in preparing workers for the future has brought sharply into focus the differences between the skills and competencies needed by the workers of the industrial era and the workers of the future. While technical and job-specific skills have sufficed in the past, it is increasingly being accepted that the worker of the future will need a more comprehensive set of competencies, 'meta-competencies' such as learning skills, life management skills, and communication skills that are not occupation specific and are transferable across all facets of life and work. [p.3, ed]

Career Development as a Partner in Nation Building Australia details the valuable historical place of career development in contributing to the broad growth of Australian society. It challenges policy makers and practitioners to provide a more sustained national systemic approach.

The Systems Theory Framework was developed to produce a metatheoretical framework through which the contribution of all theories to our understanding of career behaviour could be recognised. In addition it emphasises the individual as the site for the integration of theory and practice. Its utility has become more broadly acknowledged through its application to a range of cultural groups and settings, qualitative assessment processes, career counselling, and multicultural career counselling. For these reasons, the STF is a very valuable addition to the field of career theory. In viewing the field of career theory as a system, open to changes and developments from within itself and through constantly interrelating with other systems, the STF and this book are adding to the pattern of knowledge and relationships within the career field. The contents of this book will be integrated within the field as representative of a shift in understanding existing relationships within and between theories. In the same way, each reader wilt integrate the contents of the book within their existing views about the current state of career theory and within their current theory-practice relationship. [Back cover, ed].