Students have a very nascent view of careers. Some think of it as a source of income after school and college, some consider it as a continuation of their parent’s legacy, and some consider careers as just another engagement in life as much as school and college.
We as parents and teachers have a role to educate our children but not making this education an end, but rather a means to an end. The result being making education an enjoyable process of self-discovery where every child learns and discovers on a continuous basis their inner talents, how these talents influence the world around and how the world can be made a better place to live in the future.
Formal Career guidance is a must-do process in the new Educational Development Plan 2020 set by the government. Some universities have started teaching this as a formal master’s program so that these graduates can go to schools and conduct formal career guidance to students so that they continuously think about their future while at school.
Our school educators are following a two-pronged approach. The first stop is continuous monitoring, assessment and advise students about their strengths in languages, logical reasoning, sciences, communication, art, music, and physical activities and making the students to work on these strengths to find their unique potential to influence the future world. The second method is to expose students to careers early on in their student life which is from grade 8 or 9 onwards where they build their individuality and are continuously interacting with peers and elders to know what is there for them in the future.
The success rate of a child landing in his or her right career has an inside out view and an outside in view and both views are important to understand. The inside out view should tell the child whether the chosen career gives them personal satisfaction, a sense of fulfillment and a means to influence the world towards a better tomorrow. The outside in view should see the child never looking for a job but rather jobs looking for them, it should see the child growing steadily towards achieving not just recognition and appreciation but the ability for the child to bring even better talent to the same career in the future.
Children are our future. If we want a better future, then we adults must work today and build a career for our children not by making our children do what we think is right but rather what they think will be their best fit between skills, capabilities and the needs of the world.