Career Counselling: Impact on the Future Generation of India
Judging a fish by its ability to climb a tree or forcing a creative genius to become an engineer, expecting a free-thinker to do a 9-5 job and chasing only a particular school or university is doing more harm than good to our students. It is time we broaden our horizons and get the right guidance to make a wise choice.
The statistics have it, In India the ratio of career counselors to secondary school students is highly unbalanced. There are over 300 million students in need for career guidance and only 1 lakh career counsellors present. This huge gap needs to be addressed so as to reach the right guidance to the large number of students who are confused about the career choices they should make. An alarmingly large number of students end up making a choice based on factors other than their own interest and aptitude. This leads to expensive U-turns in the middle of university, unhappiness and usual burn out with the career path chosen. Some deal with the inability to keep up with the chosen career and face a disrupt in all areas of his/her life due to the career choice being wrong. Often times when interests and aptitudes don’t align, sooner or later the fatigue of working in a wrong sector/job catches up and leaves your entire life in disarray.
What might be the problem here? The root cause is in making the right choice at the beginning. This cannot be done on an impulse or due to factors like parental or peer pressure. Every individual must analyze their own interests, weigh their socio-economic environments, go through a series of cognitive tests and then consult with an expert regarding choices available to be able to reach an informed decision. With the process being so precise, it is often a wonder how 8/10 of us are willing to overlook the importance of making such a huge decision in our lives. Avoiding U-turns, career burnout, and academic challenges can all be minimized when proper guidance and counselling is received.
Career Counseling is also an ongoing process, when parents, teachers and students are aware of the options and challenges of making this decision, they can all begin early on instead of scrambling at the last minute. Career Counselling not only about choosing the right career, it also involves choosing the right industry, university and matching of interests with aptitude and available options. From a younger age parents can look our for ability and interest level of their children and aid them in making the choice best sutured to them. Understanding that pushing and coercing children into taking a choice which is not the right fit for them will eventually lead to more harm than good. As Albert Einstein rightly puts it’ You cannot judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree”, Every student is unique and educators who understand this can be the perfect mentors for students as they will be steered in the direction which is suitable from an early on age. Finally, just before making the actual decision, a career counsellor comes into the picture, conducts a series of handwriting and cognitive tests. After analyzing all the data and results, the student is given a personal interaction session with an expert by the end of which he/she can make an informed decision for themselves as they are not armed with all the facts figures.
At CPHR , we come from years of understanding the Einstein philosophy; “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.” This has enabled us in helping over 10k students choose the right path of career after careful consideration of factors. We understand that every individual is unique and has to be dealt with in a personalized manner. Another form of counselling which is of more generic nature can be carried out for groups in the form of workshops.Trainings are given to teachers and parents which entail a certification so that those in touch with students regularly are armed with the right tools to provide guidance and support to students in need.
To sum up, would it not be better to excel in a career of say for e.g. photography than be a mediocre or low performing engineer? A shift in mindset is needed for our children and this change comes from parents and teachers acknowledging the need of counselling at the right place and time which will in turn have a large impact on the future generation of our country.
Book your personalized consulting session with us today. We assure you, there will be no regrets,
