Gone are the days when a student’s choice of college stood restricted to institutions in the vicinity. Talk of educational opportunities and we have certainly come a long way. The world is for your taking, provided you are ‘ready’ for it.
But this pleasant scenario also comes wrapped in a Catch 22 envelope. When one is spoilt for choice, there is always a chance of being at crossroads, unable to decide, triggering an avalanche of confused feelings.This is the paramount reason behind the ever increasing role of Career Counsellors in schools these days. The students need a systematic guidance clubbed with moral support for helping them understand themselves and the work trends.
Students face a diverse range of problems ranging from poor time management to trust issues with parents resulting in non agreement about career choice. A timely intervention equipped with unbiased suggestions, allowing them to make calculated moves based on hard facts can facilitate in making an almost perfect roadmap for a prospective career.
We, at YPS, Patiala, have always tried to hold the students’ hand. The subject choices being offered to the students in grades XI and XII are enough proof to show a wide spectrum of choices, vis a vis allowing Science students to study Economics.
Let us not overlook that 65% of today’s school children shall end up working in jobs that don’t currently exist. Someone might question the very validity of counselling. This inadvertently suggests that we need to focus on the employability of our children. Change is recognized primarily as the new normal. Even if the future holds its mysteries for them, their employability can still be enhanced by making them career adaptable. It is the counsellor’s added responsibility to become au fait with techniques of making his students increase the possibility of their employability.
Life skills and the presentation of a CV in the right format can go a long way in gearing a student to be not only career adaptable but employable. Herein, the very structure of Public School education gets the focus. A Counsellor must ideally team up with the teaching faculty and the administration in focusing on these key skills for each counselee. Participation in SUPW, IAYP, Round Square Conferences, MUNs, Debates and STEM learning works like an icing on the cake when it comes to the admission to top league colleges.
Our partnership with global counselling concerns, Univariety and Eduvelocity has revolutionized the whole process of counselling. Today we have a systematic online database of students’ choices based on Psychometric Assessment and Individual Counselling. Our students have an access to more than 12000 colleges both in India and overseas. The ability to view the college journeys of the alumni has left the students better equipped to visualize their future. The parents are kept informed of the periodic progress of the ward. They are equipped with an outreach handle wherein they can get in touch with the Counsellor as and when the need arises.
Eduvelocity has emboldened the students in making diverse global choices. The students are looking beyond the usual colleges in Canada and USA and exploring Germany, Switzerland, Australia and New Zealand.
There is a lot we yearn to accomplish yet a concentrated amalgamation of efforts by all the stakeholders in a student’s career choice has definitely given us a firm footing.