Should schools adopt a career guidance counselor for better choices?

What Is Career Guidance?

Career guidance is the process of helping individuals (school/college students or professionals) in making adequate educational and occupational choices and in making career decisions based on the demand and requirements of the future of work.

What is the difference between career guidance and career counselling?

The difference between career guidance and career counselling is that on one hand guidance is assisting individuals in achieving their desired career goals which include acting as a guide, leading and setting up a course of action, whereas career counselling, not very different from guidance, is a process which helps individuals in knowing and understanding themselves through career assessment tests or psychometric tests.

In the career counselling process, an individual’s interests, personalities, abilities and aptitudes are evaluated through a psychometric test, and on the basis of the report generated, the individual is guided towards a particular direction or career path. While career counselling is mostly recommended after the 10th/ 12th or graduate level, individuals can go for career guidance at any point in life either to discuss their future goals and career aspirations or to understand the prospects of the career they are currently pursuing or other reasons.

In today’s extremely tough competitive world people are continuously losing hope to survive on this planet, due to various reasons like large population, tough competitions, and various difficulties that children are facing but gradually students are realizing that they want to pursue a career in which they are passionate about. But in reality, most of the students are unable to identify this passion, and for that the most reliable way to find out their career passion, Career counselling holds huge significance in the student’s life which can simply turn around the scenario upside down for them.

Why do we need a counsellor?

Albert Einstein once said that – Everybody is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, people will believe that the fish is quite stupid. The fish’s best ability is to swim in the water. The value here is that each person or a child possesses a unique character and to pull out that unique character the concerned person needs a mentor or a counsellor.

These days life is becoming full of challenges and with so many career opportunities students are getting confused and puzzled up in making the right decision and therefore career counsellors with his counselling, advice, analysis, research can play a major role in making the right decision for students.

In a survey, nearly 85% of candidates state that they are not equipped to make career decisions.

For a country like India where the youth population is huge, there is a huge mismatch between the number of career counsellors and students.

For every 250 students, we need 1 career counsellor. School is the place where the foundation is built for the students. You will be shocked to know that 93% of the Indian schools don’t have career counsellors and 92% of the students don’t get any career guidance.

Who benefits from Career Guidance and Counselling programs?

• If you are in class 10th or have just completed 10th and want to decide which stream to choose for your higher secondary education

• If you are in class 12th or have just completed class 12th and have not decided what subject to follow

• If you have decided your career stream after 12th class but are not sure what to pursue in graduation

• If you are not sure or confident of your career path

• If you want to explore alternative career paths.

5 Reasons why Career Guidance has become a necessity in today’s time

1. Career counsellors are well-aware of all the opportunities

2. Embrace broad perspective to examine career skills

3. A clear road-map towards a fulfilling career

4. Resolve career conflict between children and parents

5. Connect and grow your career opportunities with domain experts

Benefits of having a counsellor in school:-

• Counsellor not only guides you but they will also be like your best friend you can share everything with them so that they can understand you from the heart as well.

• Helps in gaining the Right skill.

Conclusion:-

In today’s time especially like COVID pandemic everyone is getting affected day by day especially children and in such a harsh time a career counsellor or a mentor can boost the confidence and they can also help the person to adopt the best practices which can help an individual to get success in achieving their dream goal. Career counselling is also important because counsellor uses various logical methods which can help students and career counselling can be extremely beneficial to build careers of students and it is most important in the education system as well so schools and colleges should adopt a carrier guide counsellor for the betterment of students as well as for schools.