Prioritise career guidance in schools

Lionel Wijesiri

Young people in Sri Lanka today are facing a complex and rapidly changing society. A review of the literature reveals that an increasingly large proportion of our youth have and will continue to experience difficulty in making the transition from the world of school to the world of work

Over the past few decades significant economic, social, political, and technological changes have made it difficult for our young people to adapt to the numerous employment trends. These trends include, amongst others, irrelevance of curricula with the present job market, insufficient computer skills, insufficient proficiency in English, lack of skills development, lower use of modern teaching materials and methodologies and lack of career guidance and counselling.

However, our youth must be trained to cope with these changing trends by having the capacity to be resourceful, adaptable and flexible amidst change and ambiguity.

Cooperative efforts of the school, home and community are needed to help them successfully make the transition from school to the world of work.

A significant number of our young people stop education either after GCE O-level or A-level without obtaining any professional or technical qualifications. Maybe, circumstances might have forced them to take that decision, for no fault of theirs. It is said that Sri Lanka’s school age population is four million and less than 50,000 obtain university education.

A strategy to direct them after the O-level or A-level examination will facilitate the country to gain maximum advantage of youth capabilities.

Today, these youth need programs to help them make transitions to the working world and to re-engage with further learning and career guidance needs to be part of such programs. To be successfully implemented, such strategies and policies require youths to have the skills to manage their own education, employment and their own future.

Career Education

How early should career education programs commence in compulsory schooling? During primary school? During secondary school? And, how long should they continue? To the end of schooling, or into upper secondary education? Are there any special problems in ensuring that all students receive the assistance that they need? How can policies ensure that any such problems can be overcome?

Where separate general and vocational education tracks exist in national school systems, how can policies ensure that students in each track receive the types of career education and guidance that they need? Should career education be a separate subject in the curriculum, or should it be integrated with other subjects?

What are the implications of each option for the quality of the program and for resources? If it is a separate subject, do links need to be made to other subjects? If it is not a separate subject, how should its delivery be co-ordinated? What should its objectives be? What should its content be? Who should teach it, and what training do they need? These are questions that have to be answered before the authorities think of implementing a program. They are not easily answered.

In my opinion, effective career development intervention must begin early in secondary grades and continue into adult years. Efforts to intervene in the life career process can accelerate or strengthen the acquisition of knowledge, attitudes and skills about self and the world of work.

The criteria for a good career advisory program should meet three aspirations: it should help all students achieve academically, prepare for a career and higher education, and develop good citizenship skills.

Standard 1 - Academic Development: Students gain knowledge and develop skills required to attain academic success, maximize learning through commitment, produce high quality work, and be prepared for a range of options and opportunities following secondary school. Effective Learning will prepare them for Postsecondary Education.

Standard 2 - Career Development :Students develop a positive attitude toward work; develop the necessary skills to make a successful transition from school to the world of work, and from job to job across the life career span; and understand the relationship between success in school and future success in the world of work.

Standard 3 - Citizenship Development: Students develop the personal management and team- building skills needed to become successful learners, responsible citizens, and productive workers. The life career development of young people should be a process of planned intervention whereby educators, parents, government agencies and community members work together to provide students with hope for the future and to empower them to believe in themselves. Young people need help to keep their eyes open for opportunities in the world that will allow them fulfil their values, beliefs and interests and to reach their fullest potential.

Career Planning

Career Planning is a life-long process. It is the total constellation of psychological, educational, physical, economical and choice factors that combine to shape a young person’s life.

A comprehensive career education program in all schools is an important strategy for assisting youth with school to work transition.

It has received wide spread support throughout many developing and developed countries in the world. Studies of guidance and counselling programs, reports by the business community, and feedback from parents have raised concerns that most of our young people do not have the necessary knowledge, skills, and attitudes to make a successful transition from school to the world of work.

Career planning is not instinctive. Young people must be provided with information and taught basic knowledge, skills and attitudes to facilitate a smooth journey from adolescence to adulthood.

According to the concept of life career planning, it is practically unthinkable to prepare young people for their life of work without occupational exploration.

This is accomplished through the student’s school subjects and extracurricular activities with the help of parents, teachers, friends and representatives of the world of work and the community.

This way of proceeding not only allows the students to explore who they are but to explore their surroundings.

Thus the students can be exposed to a whole range of occupational opportunities, establish a relation between their personal characteristics and those of occupations, and acquire more information about the knowledge, skills and values required in the world of work.

Obstacle

Here we face our first major obstacle. In Sri Lanka, there is a serious lack of career guidance provision for students. So far we have no specialized teachers for career guidance or counseling within our school system.

So what can we do? The challenge must be taken now.

The Education Authorities with the assistance of the Youth Affairs Ministry and the Private Sector must work out and develop a career guidance program to effectively inform youth and provide occupational choice in the world of work.

The subcomponent of the project should include training teachers as focal points for career guidance, developing and disseminating career information materials, providing career guidance corners in major secondary schools, undertaking career-related school and community youth activities, and visits to work places and visits by career role models.

In short, the Project should be based on the belief that all students, including those with challenging needs, have the right to benefit from effective instruction to ensure optimal development. Although the abilities of students will vary, there should be an expectation for participation, partially or independently, in activities at home, in the school, in the community, and at work.

The main purpose of the Career Guidance Program should be to empower all students to reach their fullest potential. Research has already demonstrated that comprehensive career guidance programs can provide students with basic economic understandings, skills in understanding themselves and educational and occupational opportunities, and skills in overcoming bias and stereotyping.

Evidence is also promising that students can acquire increases in basic academic skills, a desire to work, career decision making skills, and job-seeking/finding/getting/ holding skills. Through collaborative efforts in career guidance, teachers can help parents influence their children’s career development more effectively and wisely, and together they may all succeed in turning the promises of research into reality.