A background paper for a school or organization providing a rationale for the development and provision of career development services for the student/client/employee population
INTRODUCTION
Career development is an identity issue that impacts personal development and satisfaction with life across the life span. We all face turning points in our lives which require decisions, career is one of them. Career concerns occur throughout one’s lifetime and one of the most important aspects of an individual’s personal happiness is affected by one’s career choice. A wrong choice of career at the start could jeopardize one’s whole life. Thus, importance is increasingly being placed in career development issues.
This career development issue starts as early as childhood. When children start going to school and are already exposed to the environment, they start having thoughts about what to do in the future. The school can help a lot in shaping the careers of the students. School counselors at every academic level therefore play a significant role in promoting personal and career development of students that will continue throughout life.
The endeavor of schools offering career development services for school children is supported by increasing research and evidence that career development is a lifelong process which starts at childhood. For this paper, a rationale will be provided as to why a Singaporean school should develop and provide career development services for its primary schoolchildren.
HISTORY OF CAREER DEVELOPMENT SERVICES IN SINGAPORE
The development of career guidance in Singapore has been very much influenced by the evolution of the education system, which went through several reform movements after the country gained independence in 1965. In the early years of nation building in the 1960s and 1970s, the education system was “survival-driven” and the focus of education policy was on educating the masses and raising the standard of literacy (2002).
Career guidance in Singapore schools went through 3 stages of development. The focus in the 1st stage was on information-giving. A curriculum approach was adopted in the 2nd stage when career education became part and parcel of the school curriculum. The 3rd stage saw the integration of career guidance with information technology and the shift of the role of the career teachers from “expert” to “facilitator.” To meet the challenges of the new millennium, there is a need to train professional career counselors, develop indigenous resource materials, and promote a new concept of career development among students.
The information-giving approach was based on three assumptions: (a) that the students were motivated to use the materials provided, (b) that they knew beforehand what kind of information to look for, and (c) that they knew how to use the information once they had located it. The fact was, without encouragement and proper guidance from the teachers, many students were not motivated to look for occupational information, let alone use it for career planning.
Ability grouping and curricular changes were introduced to cater to different ability groups and to reduce educational wastage while values education was emphasized to foster social cohesion. The introduction of pastoral care and career guidance into Singapore schools in the late 1980s was another attempt to make the education system “more efficient” ( 2002).
To support career guidance in schools, the Ministry of Education issued guidelines and provided resource materials, copies of which were given to all of the schools (1994). This new program adopted a holistic approach to education that not only focused on the academic development of the students but also emphasized the personal, social, moral, and career development of the individuals. In some ways the term pastoral care in the Singapore context is synonymous with the term guidance used in the U.S., Canada, and Australia. In these countries, the term guidance is used to describe the process of developing personal, social, and career-related skills.
The Singaporean economy demands a new approach to facilitating career development. Initially, students need to identify broad industry sector destinations and prepare themselves for multiple roles within these sectors. Mastery of career management skills, which include transferable employability and personal management skills, needs to be part of mainstream primary, secondary, and postsecondary education programs, employee training and development programs, and remedial programs for adults in career transitions. Acquisition of these skills increases the likelihood of workplace success and success in life. As students benefit, so do their families, learning institutions, employers, communities, and the nation (2003).
CONTEXT
Career concerns occur throughout one’s lifetime and one of the most important aspects of an individual’s personal happiness is affected by one’s career choice. Young people become aware of the career opportunities and choices around them as they become exposed to friends and people around them, parents’ occupations, role models, television programs, school programs and counseling, church and community activities, and many others (1999).
Because these exposures become broader and deeper throughout high school, it is almost impossible for students not to be overwhelmed by the many occupations and choices around them. In fact, after primary and high school, temporary and transitional occupations are often chosen, with continued adjustments throughout life span for better career satisfaction.
People are usually influenced by the factors mentioned in the previous paragraph about their career decisions. These can start as early as childhood. This is an ideal time to present career information. At this time of their lives they are looking at their interests and skills and determining what they might like to do “when they grow up.” Organizations, parents, peer group or other factors could present many professions as a viable career choice to middle school students (2006). These kinds of presentations show the students that there are a variety of options available to them. This is the very rationale as to why as early as in primary school, children are already being given options.
The importance of career development on effective student planning has escalated in the past years. A growing research base underscores the positive impact of career guidance and counseling efforts, particularly those with developmentally appropriate content, increasingly referred to as career development, on successful career choices (2000).
In primary school settings, counselors focus on each student developing healthy self esteem, successfully relating to others and beginning career awareness. In middle and high school settings, counselors focus on the increasingly complex integration of personal and career knowledge to facilitate student decision-making (2000).
The importance of career development cannot be underestimated in a culture where personal identity is so closely linked with what we do – our life work (1993). The congruent match of person and career contributes significantly to satisfaction with life and personal self-esteem. Career development is a process that begins in childhood and continues throughout the life span (1990).
Career development work, originally called career guidance, is a term applied across a spectrum of career-related processes, including the provision of information, counseling, curriculum, and program interventions, such as work experiences, and the coordination of events, such as career markets. It is conducted by a large variety of professionals, including teachers, counselors, and career advisers. Recently, career has been related to life-long learning, especially with the creation of a National Careers Task Force responsible for oversight of most policy and practice. A recent development is the for Career Development (2005).
While changes in work and the workplace require change in career theory and practice, there has been a plight calling for school counselors to provide evidence of positive impact on student achievement. (2002) posed questions about school counselor relevancy and suggested the need to ask how to improve school counseling. For those who believe that school counseling, education, and student planning are inseparable, examining long held assumptions about career development deserves attention.
(1990) suggested that school guidance counselors and teachers should lead the way in devising opportunities for students to explore a variety of career clusters in the laboratory and in the classrooms. (1990) reported that, in a conference devoted to counseling and career planning in high schools, several counseling practitioners lamented over the difficulties and frustrations associated with assisting students in career planning due largely to a lack of understanding of different career development theories and models (1999).
It has been suggested that school guidance counselors should lead the way in devising opportunities for students to explore a variety of career clusters. Yet, in a conference devoted to counseling and career planning in high schools, several counseling practitioners lamented the difficulties associated with assisting students in career planning. These difficulties are due largely to a lack of understanding of different career development theories and models (1999).
There is no doubt that career theories address the self construct from very different angles, based on diverse philosophical backgrounds and with varied purposes. Notwithstanding these variances, all theories seem to share at least a portion of the very basic foundation of vocational psychology. That is, a person’s internal psychological selfhood plays an important role in his or her life career journey. This reality invites some consideration of theory integration ( 2003).
Career guidance activities and development requires an understanding of its theories. An understanding of career development theories will enable teachers, students, and school guidance counselors to understand various approaches they could use to meet the diverse needs of their students, especially those about to commit to careers or college majors.
The way counseling theories provide a framework for the conceptualization and rationalization of client problems, career development theories provide a framework with which counselors help with students’ career and academic problems. Hence, career development theories are the foundation of the process of counseling that offers a means of conceptualizing students’ career concerns (1999).
A discussion of some of the more prominent theories that have formed the basis for career development and counseling practices including their implications for counseling practitioners are very important. The ultimate aim of each theory or framework is to provide explanations of the concepts and principles behind an individual’s occupational choice processes and career development.
Achieving the goals proposed by a shift from vocational decision making to career building requires a framework for school counselors to help students become aware of and master career management skills. Programs and resources need to be based on clear and measurable career management learning and performance outcomes. School counselors need readily accessible resources tied to this framework to foster student achievement. A common framework needs to illustrate the linkages or overlaps between programs as well as identify gaps in existing school counseling programs. School counselors benefit from a common language of career management to eliminate ambiguity and confusion between schools and the public (2003).
A school should sum up its career guidance program as comprising the following activities–the conduct of occupational surveys to assess guidance needs of students; individual counseling and group guidance on subject combination, learning of job application, and job interviewing skills; group sessions to develop decision-making and problem-solving skills; the organization of career weeks and career seminars; visits to industries; and, finally , work shadowing and work experience programs during the vacation to provide students with the opportunity to experience firsthand what working life is like (1994).
In career counseling interventions, the counselor can help the child explore a range of options in forming a broad context for exploration and action. First, career counselors can help the children increase their awareness concerning the important impact of environmental conditions on their future life career development. Counselors can provide the children with opportunities to describe and analyze pros and cons of the environmental conditions. More attention may be directed to understanding these contextual variables, using advantages, and turning adversity into more optimal situations (2003).
In the primary grades, school counselors focus first on children’s self understanding the development of healthy self-esteem. This is implemented by helping children acquire skills in self-expression, experience the satisfaction that comes with competence in accomplishing tasks, and understand that mistakes are a normal part of development. Another focus for the primary school counselor is to facilitate the child’s understanding and appreciation broad enough to embrace differences. Providing opportunities for children to become familiar with the roles and contributions of a diverse group of workers in a wide range of careers is also an important task for elementary school counselors to enhance life career development (2000).
In elementary school upper grades, school counselors facilitate children’s ability to work cooperatively in groups, set personal goals, make personal choices and decisions, accept responsibility for the consequences of personal decisions, come to grips with peer pressure and develop and prize one’s own standards (1991). To provide school counselors with a better understanding of how to assist children in the career development process, additional information about the career goals and dreams of children would be very useful.
School counselors owe students their best thinking about these moving targets. For their parts, students need to maximize their strengths and demonstrate the self-discipline needed to get what they want in life and work. They need encouragement during all experiences so they can learn to evaluate options, critically evaluate decision outcomes, and assume responsibility for garnering the career development competencies needed. At the very least, school counselors need to help students learn to ask better questions and work with more realistic assumptions that reflect an understanding of the changing workplace (2003).
School counselors can enhance career life development through guidance activities that connect specific school subjects with related jobs, It is imperative for a student to grow in these areas early in life to support the integration of personal and career identity as they mature. The goal of life career development programs in the elementary years is to explore the self and then to begin to look at the self in relation to others and work (2000).
Increasingly, parents and the alumni are also participating as role models and resource persons. Some parents and alumni are invited to share with the students their personal work experiences; others offer their workplaces as sites for obtaining work experience. Another distinctive feature of the Integration Stage in career guidance is the use of technology; thus, the use of the computer in career guidance has become a regular feature in schools since the 1990s (2002).
CONCLUSION
The increasing prevalence of schools offering career development services to school children is supported by various literature and researches. Career aspirations start as early as childhood and the child need to be guided and counseled with regards to this. Careers are lifetime aspects. Choices concerning careers could significantly affect a person. The provision of career development services within a Singaporean school could health the school children chose the right career paths and decisions. In the past, career education has received little attention in curriculum reforms across Singapore and, in the postschool context, is considered to be uneven, although a number of tertiary institutions have begun offering career development programs as credit-granting elective units. Targets for the programs have moved from students in primary schools to people at all ages and career development stages. School guidance counselors play a big part in this. However, the responsibility for young people’s career development is not solely of the schools. This is a shared endeavor in which the parents of the children, as well as other members of the community, work together to prepare these primary school children.
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