The article addresses the decision-making process of career choice among high-school students and emphasizes the importance of supporting their informed decisions by trained teachers acting as career-guidance counselors. While, ideally, school counselors handle career counseling, their limited availability necessitates the involvement of other resources, such as trained teachers. The present study introduces a career-guidance training program for teachers, implemented with 20 Romanian and 20 Serbian teachers. The research conducted simultaneously with the training aimed to assess the effectiveness of this cross-national program in enhancing teachers’ competence in career guidance. Utilizing a longitudinal mixed methodology, the study assessed the teachers’ perceptions of the training’s effectiveness and sustainability over a period of 24 months. Two questionnaires featuring multiple-choice and open-choice questions were employed. The results consistently indicated that teachers rated the training as excellent or very good across various dimensions, including content, trainers, didactic materials, and applications. Challenges were noted in designing and implementing group career activities compared to individual ones, with no significant differences observed between Serbian and Romanian teachers. After 24 months, a deductive content analysis of open-ended questions assessed the sustainability of acquired competencies. Our findings indicated active teacher participation in career-guidance activities, primarily with final-year students serving as class teachers or subject instructors. In the context of a scarcity of career-counseling specialists, training teachers as career-guidance advisors emerges as a viable solution. The study highlights the potential of such training programs to address the critical need for comprehensive career guidance in schools.

Makerspaces are increasingly integrated into educational activities in both formal and nonformal contexts, from primary to higher education, particularly as interdisciplinary learning spaces that foster creativity and the “do-it-yourself” approach. Their hands-on approach stimulates agency, critical thinking, and innovation—competences closely tied to the entrepreneurship competence. However, empirical studies exploring the relationship between makerspaces and the development of entrepreneurship competence remain limited, often addressing only specific types of makerspaces or partial aspects of entrepreneurial competence. The aim of this study is to identify, based on a systematic literature review, if/how makerspaces contribute to developing entrepreneurial competences of students in secondary education. In total, 35 articles published in the last 10 years, indexed in ERIC, Web of Science, and Google Scholar, selected according to the PRISMA guidelines, met the inclusion criteria. The selected databases ensure both quality and broad coverage. The studies were analyzed using a structured framework based on four thematic categories: identity (makerspace as learning space influencing entrepreneurial competences), competence (focus on entrepreneurial competences), program (educational initiatives fostering entrepreneurial competences), environment (contextual factors shaping entrepreneurial competences in makerspaces). The findings reveal that the identity of makerspaces, characterized by values such as collaboration, valuing ideas, and hands-on learning, converges with the intentional design of learning environments and the structure of educational programs to foster entrepreneurial competences. Makerspaces were found to cultivate dimensions such as creativity, problem-solving, teamwork, initiative, and ethical thinking, all of which are listed as units of the entrepreneurial competence by EntreComp. The study concludes that makerspaces can act as effective pedagogical means for supporting entrepreneurial competence development. The results provide valuable insights and examples that can inform the design of future educational strategies and programs to promote entrepreneurship education and develop entrepreneurial competences in nonformal and formal learning settings acting as makerspaces.