Lack of Career Counseling in Pakistan

Education and career plays a pivotal role in journey of ones life from birth till death. If students’ education best fit with their abilities they become one of the successful person in the world.

if you particularly talk about Pakistan where literacy rate is so low that people are not enough equipped with education how they can be self guided about the career direction and its dilemma of our country that even many educated people don’t think about this critical issue.... many parents forces their children to choose the field they decided for them.

The rationale behind their success is a perfect match in their abilities (interest) and their career choice. So every person should know their strengths and weakness and on playing their strengths they can overcome their weaknesses and will hit the opportunities with right momentum at the right time.

This is somewhat we call career counseling as counseling is to provide direction for the course of action and if I say, right direction for career decision than it is called career counseling. Career counselors assist on issues like career exploration, personal career preferences, change in career, and all related issues to attain their career goals.

It is a widely used concept in many of the developed countries, they have counseling facilities to guide students and professionals but unfortunately it is not very well recognized concept in Pakistan, one of the reason is many prevailing factors in Pakistan like political unrest inflation and law and order situation doesn’t allow people to focus of these kinds of issues and also lack of awareness, but still there are few universities who offers counseling to their students, but it should be available as facility for all.

I divide the counseling in two major folds one is at turning point of your educational career when you choose some specific subjects for your future career and second is your professional career in which you choose your career for practical life

It is generally perceived that student who study science is good and intelligent as I have been told by one of my teacher about his experience regarding that, once he was in the interview panel and there was one of the female candidate performed excellently in interview but her academics was not good as compare to many other interviewer, on inquiry she told that she choose business field in masters by her own choice and before that she was forced to study science subjects by her father so results in poor academic record. This is only one of the examples but there are hundreds of cases around us facing this problem. Many of the students waste their golden time period in just passing out burden of studies without realizing the fact that how we are worthless without education.

The need for career guidance and counseling in Pakistan has grown significantly during last few years especially for school and colleges students. This is because of the following factors:

First, rapid changes in technology, and lack of skills and resources in our students to cope with these changes.
Second, lack of informed, relevant and clear guidance.
Third, lack of trained teachers and counselors in career guidance in our schools and colleges.

Career guidance and counseling services need could only be filled if school educate and train their teachers in the use of career guidance and counseling tools and techniques. And adopt a comprehensive career guidance model.

As it is said by William Shakespeare “I wasted time, and now doth time waste me.”

So I believe that students at middle or higher level should be provided with the guidance about career identification and selection of field of specialization within that career by connecting their resources so they got maximum output out of it and their field of interest by taking ability tests and personality assessment so they will be guided properly for a bright future of individuals and nations and with the freedom to choose their field but with the proper guidance.

After completion of required academics, professional counseling is next step it is not a one time decision it is an ongoing process you might change your profession many times or can stick to one,. As a person who is well matched with the job is likely to be more motivated and successful than others who are poorly suited as said by William Shakespeare “choose the work you love, you will never have to work a single day in your life.”

One basic problem is that individuals should be provided with the proper assistance with job searching strategies such as writing resume and cover letter, learning interview skills, knowing where to look for jobs, that are advertise as well as jobs that are not advertised, as job searching strategies is one of the basic task for starting a career and if you are not well equipped with this you will be losing good opportunities.

To become master of one is better than jack of all and if you choose area of your interest you will be having command over it and will be highly accepted by market and will be paid as per your expertise so whatever you are, be a good one and don’t let failure prevent career growth.

There is great need of counseling for our students and our professionals as both are the asset of our nation and if we will under utilize our asset we will not be getting maximum output. For this parents, family, friends and environment is a big informal source of guidance and they should keep them aware of the educational pattern and interests of individual by well adjusting the resources and environmental opportunities and teachers should also be good source of information for students along with it counselors guide should be provided to the individuals to decide about the future as field selection is most crucial decision of one’s life and wrong decision will lead to disastrous results as weak base will never build a strong building.

But it is not as simple as it appears on its face as concept of counseling in Pakistan is minimal and no proper work is done for it and lack of resources and inflexibility of environment are also some contaminating factors, its need of time to focus on this issues as world is becoming global village and now we are not only competing within Pakistan but all over world so we should be best in what we are.... its about pride of Pakistan.