IMPORTANCE OF CAREER COUNSELLING IN TODAY’S EDUCATION SYSTEM

Every kid in India go through a simple but soon to become one of the most important question of their life “What do you want to be in future?” The kids always have their answers ready and believe me pursuing management programmes is not even the last of their answers. The kid reflects what their parents want them to reflect with their answer. A Doctor, an engineer, a pilot, a scientist, an IAS officer etc. In our country up to 10 th standard the performances in our school is a mark of what the student is capable of studying, either its science, commerce or arts. Indian education system comprises some checkpoints which is commonly termed as “Board exams”. What it does basically is that it categorises students based on the result of the exam which is purely academics. Let’s see what these checkpoints offer.

The 10th Board:
Be it CBSE, ICSE or any state/university boards, Indian students are born to take it as the first hurdle and the performance decides what a student want to take up as their future subjects but then comes the society which in most part of India believes that taking up science is the way of having a sense of pride among parents. Prachi wants to take up Arts but couldn’t because her parents might get it hard to talk to her maternal uncle whose son Rohan after getting 92% has opted for science. He is going to Kota and so do Prachi because of the peer pressure. Prachi has a very good voice, she has a passion of being a voice artist but she is solving DC Pandya’s Advance mechanics.
The 12th Board:
Prachi failed the 12th Board but surprisingly Rohan also didn’t had great marks by his standards. He got 75% and also failed the AIPMT/NEET Exams for medicals. Rohan was good at maths but he always wanted to be first person to be the doctor in the entire family so opted for biology. He succumbed to his own pressure. Prachi stood up, left science got entitled herself to a subject she found easy(Arts) got through the 12 th Board Barrier and went on to become a very good voice artist. As now she was following some simple words from her parents “ DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO, WE ARE THERE FOR YOU”.

Indian education system doesn’t only require counselling on the basis of academic’s performances it should be more variant as compared to other system.

• Inclusion of more field of interest:- only top-five subjects should not be the marker whether someone is genius and other is average or dumb. Prachi had a very good voice so indeed she was genius in her field of interest. Rohan was good at math so he was too genius in his field of interest, so there is no comparison in between, here both are winners.
• Removal of social-cultural stigma :- Counselling of parents should be done to alleviate the sense of feeling low, because their kid is not good at math .They should be feeling proud as the kid who is not good at math is a world class dancer . In this case , Prachi’s parents were needed to get counselled. Parents need not to justify anyone what their child want to do it in future.
• Financial breakups:- financial consideration should be given utmost priority, no students have to give up their hopes just because of lack of funds. Indian system wants you to either compete or pay hefty.
  Unfortunately, second options is available for just handful of people.
• Reservations:- Indian system have allowed us to take reservation on under consideration when it comes to education. The problem mostly here in India is when you ask a vegetable vendor he inspite of falling under category of reservation doesn’t know how it can help his kid to excel. Reservation should be used to uplift who is needed to get uplifted not ones who has already been uplifted. Thus, counselling in Indian education system needs on overall makeup because of diverse culture of ours. Counselling and study should go hand in hand otherwise a M S Dhoni would have been working on Kharagpur railway station as ticket collector and Rohit Sharma would have been bowling right arm off spin in a local club match.

Submitted By: Prateek mani Raja|Samir Srivastava
(PGDM Batch 2019-21)