Counselling at the crossroads — Parvez Jamil

Given the fact counselling is mostly pursued by trends or fashion, the net result is choked creativity, escapist tendencies or violent outbursts 

As a business promotion strategy, a posh institution once experimented to modernise, revolutionise and revitalise education by following the western system of counselling blindly and making a mess of it altogether. The proprietor merely wanted to introduce counselling in order to give his institution a trendy, fashionable or modern disposition but his miserly, tight-fisted and penny-pinching psychology would not allow him to hire a full-time specialist to counsel the young ones. He assigned the additional role of counselling to someone who was already working as the course coordinator, besides being an excellent physics teacher. With teaching physics to five classes, overall course coordination and counselling an hour every day after school with no additional pay and mounting accountability by the management, the poor teacher was left in the lurch and left! He could deliver neither the quality nor produce any good results despite the excellence he possessed.

Lodhran Pilot Project - Career Counseling

Career Counseling

Our career development is a lifelong process that, whether we know it or not, actually started when we were born! There are a number of factors that influence our career development, including our interests, abilities, values, personality, background, and circumstances. It helps us to know and understand our self and the world of work in order to make career, educational, and life decisions. It really is a lifelong process, meaning that throughout our life we will change, situations will change, and we will continually have to make career and life decisions.
Peter Drucker said:

"The best way to predict our future is to create it."

It gives us sense to think about our future. Career Counseling plays an important role in our life. In developing countries like Pakistan there is no concept about career counseling. It is very important for students, teachers, businessman etc. like as we are students of intermediate and we have completed our ten years of schooling. During these ten years nobody told us about career counseling but we needed it. Like after matric we did not know what to do now? Every way was in front of us but we did not know which one to be chosen. Some people said you should join the field of medical, some said join engineering it has many benefits and some said about commerce. We got confused and did that what our parents said. Before some days some career counselors came and told us about career counseling. We had a workshop with them about career counseling. They made our concepts clear about it. We are thankful to Allah Almighty for showering his special blessings on us through that workshop. That workshop was organized by L.P.P (Lodhran Pilot Project). After getting knowledge about career counseling through that workshop we got the answers of all these following questions which we had in our mind.
• How do we decide what type of career goals are right for us?
• What type of work environment fits us best?
• What field of study should we pursue?
• What if our career goals are different from what our families think they should be?
• What if we make a choice and then change our minds?
• What should we do if our career goals are failed?
Now we can see our future very bright because we know what we have to do in our future life and we have also developed our thoughts through that workshop.
The goal of Career Counseling is to give us the opportunity to begin exploring the elements of a career that make sense or seem to fit for us. The results can offer us insight into the type of tasks we may enjoy, the kind of things that are important to us, and the types of skills for which we have an aptitude or talent. In addition, results will suggest some career goals and occupations that we may want to research further.
We owe our special thanks to career counselors who gave us sense about best future. We are highly indebted to L.P.P (Lodhran Pilot Project) for organizing such kinds of workshops for Lodhran’s people. We also owe our deepest sense of gratitude to Mr. Jahangir Khan Tareen for organizing these kinds of workshops for the betterment of students which inculcating in us a self believe which proved out to be our greatest source of strength.

Written by
Muhammad Owais Sajjad, Waseem Abbas, Alauddin Awan
Superior College Lodhran.

Interview with Raza Abbas – Pioneer of Institutional Career Counseling in Pakistan

I've recently got an opportunity to interview Mr. Raza Abbas, Global Career Practitioner who has the honor of being the pioneer of professionalizing career counseling and career guidance in Pakistan. He consistently presents diverse research papers at premier international career counseling and career guidance conferences in Africa, Asia, Europe and North America. He has acquired more than a decade of experiences in career guidance, career counseling, career development, human resources and leadership development.

Mr. Raza Abbas completed dual degrees from The University of Arizona, USA and earned certifications in leadership and personal development from the United States of America. He was also professionally trained in career counseling and career guidance from the Internationally Renowned Career Services Department at The University of Arizona, USA.

Following is a script of my interview with Mr. Raza Abbas (RA):

Career Pro: Please tell us about your recent visit to an international career conference in Italy.

RA: First of all thank you for the opportunity to share my humble experiences to a global and national audience. I submitted my research paper which was peer reviewed by two independent members of the Scientific Committee comprising of PhD global scholars in the field of career counseling and they unanimously accepted my paper: “Institutionalized Career Counseling Model: Creating Hope” at the International Conference “Life Design and Career Counseling Building Hope & Resilience”, held in Padova, Italy in June 20-22, 2013.

The theme of the International Conference was "Building Hope and Resilience". Research Professionals and Career Practitioners from all parts of the world congregated at the world renowned University of Padova in Italy to share their thoughts and ideas on the subject.

Career Pro: Could you summarize the paper you've presented there for us.

RA: Pakistan currently has a population bonus in which more than 60% of the population comprises of the youth. Therefore, Career Counseling and Career Guidance should be institutionalized in the country at all educational institutions as it is the need of the hour to guide our youth.

I emphasized that due to the acute shortage of skilled career practitioners in the country it is imperative to train the distinguish faculty at educational institutions in career counseling. Similarly, career counseling should be implemented as a policy at educational institutions in the country which will lead to a win/win situation for the students, educators, parents and employers. I further mentioned that our organization has developed a researched based institutionalized teacher training program for schools, colleges and universities in Pakistan and the region.

Career Pro: Why did you select this topic for your paper?

RA: Great question, I noticed that career counseling is no longer a luxury in the country it has now become an acute need for the youth to have productive and sustainable careers. Currently we do not have a concrete system of executing professional career counseling so I felt it will be fruitful to write a research paper on institutionalizing career counseling. Through this pioneering research we are providing a system to educational institutions to implement for the betterment of their valuable students and further increase the reputation of their respective institute.

Career Pro: What response you've acquired from international career professionals regarding your efforts for institutional career counseling in Pakistan?

RA: Well it was a humble experience to be acknowledged and appreciated by Global Scholars and experts in the field of career counseling and career guidance who have published significantly. They endorsed and appreciated the teacher training program and wished the best for this institutionalized career counseling program.

Career Pro: In an international and regional (south-east Asian) context where do you think Pakistan stands in a career development field?

RA: Well it will not be fair to compare Pakistan with the international arena as career professionals in the west and South Asia have practiced professional career counseling for decades. The promising factor is we have entered the international arena and have been endorsed and acknowledged for our pioneering professional efforts in the field of career development, counseling and guidance relatively soon while other emerging countries take longer time to materialize and achieve.

With respect to South-Asia we need to increase the professional advocacy of the career counselling and guidance profession in Pakistan. Internationally and in South Asia, Career Counseling and Career Guidance is already part of youth public policy and the youth in their respective countries receives career counseling as a civic right. There are legislatures for promoting career counseling and career guidance.

In our country we must appreciate and acknowledge the Government, Education & Literacy Department and Youth Affairs Department for initiating career counseling and career guidance projects for the youth for which I am grateful in being the part of that pioneering program.

After seeing the Government’s interest and support the International Donor organizations have also contributed in Career Counseling and Career Guidance projects in Pakistan. However there are numerous diverse opportunities to be accomplished to sustain career counseling and career guidance in the country.

Career Pro: Tell us more about your Institutional Career Guidance program and its scope in 
Pakistan?

RA: The Institutional Career Guidance program is holistic and involves all the relevant stakeholders in its teacher training program i.e students, educators, parents and employers. As there is acute awareness of career counseling and career guidance training in the country I have conceptualized a pilot program. The teacher training content addresses issues and challenges the youth have experienced in the past and is institutionalized and solution based program for the respective institute staff and youth.

Career Pro: What would be your take home message, after attending this conference, for career professionals in Pakistan?

RA: It is always wonderful to represent the country at such prestigious international conferences. It reflects the positive side of our country. Career Professionals my message to all of you: “Have hope and believe in yourself and believe in the nation because we have incredible talent. We have done wonders in the past and have the ability to do it again after all we are known to be a resilient nation.

Professional Career Counseling and Career Guidance is now a reality in Pakistan. Now it is the responsibility of educational institution stakeholders, distinguished teachers and the corporate sector through its corporate social responsibility to take advantage of this pioneering teacher training program and play their important part in this inspirational and meaningful program in the country’s history”.

Raza Abbas, Global Career Practitioner - he can be contacted at: ra@pathwayglobal.org.

Drop-Out - Opt-In Theory of Career Development

Drop-out theory of career development
In a career development process if a student does not get admission in a program of his interest because of low marks, or lack of financial resources, then s(he) drop-out of competition and rely on the remaining educational options on a career ladder. Occupations on these career ladders are defined by actual or perceived demand of particular occupation.
Every students aims for the highest paying and reputable professions. To get into those occupations students either need to have a degree from a reputable university or program of studies. But no one ever did a statistics of how many people are in those profession and how many of them are earning highest salaries.
This drop down effect happens only when students does not look inside and ask what they really want, instead they look outside and ask what others are doing. In this process they lost the opportunity to define themselves, their career and success in life.

Opt-in theory of career development
On the other hand opt-in theory define thing inside out. In this situation student ask the right question i.e. who am I, what I want to do, where I want to go, how I could reach there? Additionally what is important for me, what interests me, does it matches to my personality. They does not follow other VIP's (Value, Interests and Personality) rather they define and follow their own VIP's Value, Interests and Personality. They opt in for occupations for which they find themselves suitable, capable and passionate. They does not follow the gold rather goal, which is well defined, refined for career success.

Presenting decent employment for youth through career development.

An inability to find employment create sense of uncertainty, uselessness and idleness in young people. One way of addressing this issue is to prepare students/youths for the changing need of market and economic trends. This preparation process can be achieved one, by continuously updating curriculum and two, by identifying students interests and informing/guiding them toward possible career options available to them.

We briefly review second strategy for preparing students to ever changing labour market trends.

There are different strategies available to identify interest and guide students to growing and developing occupational/career options. Interest of students could be identified by looking at academic performance in different subjects, non-academic interests and extracurricular activities, exposing them to different occupational fields and lastly using different interest assessment instruments. Occupational and Labour Market Information can be collected by surveying and analyzing economic trends and presenting that information to students so they could see what each occupation looks like, what is its outlook, earning potential and qualification required. And at the end could make an informed career decision.

By harnessing internal potential and external trends would increase employment prospect and leads to stable labour behaviour among young people.