Career counseling by Career Disha Nepal is offered by an expert career counselor to help youth to recognize their individual interests, values, and abilities by using different counseling tools and techniques. The different types of career counseling tools bring clarity to career-related goals, find the possible solution for education and career problems and point out the highest potential, and recommend suitable education and career to the youths accordingly.

Research shows that career counseling has led to individuals entering more suitable jobs, achieving greater job satisfaction and experiencing less job turnover than their counterparts who were not in the recipient of the career guidance.

In the modern era, the need for introducing career counseling to the students is very important to motivate the students toward the highest potential career choices. In Nepal, after SEE (School Education Examination) knowingly and unknowingly the chances of choosing the wrong career are greater than ever. Be it due to social pressure, misinformation or lack of reflection. Therefore, if students get a chance to have career counseling in the school level, they will have the choice to have an informed career…before it is too late.

We conducted the survey on 12 schools located at different places in Suryabinayak Municipality, Bhaktapur. The places include Ram Mandir, Aadarsh, and Kamal Binayak to know the perception and recognition of career counseling in school’s administration.

Recognition of the term and concept of career counseling in schools

Figure: 1 Study reveals that the term career counseling is completely new for more than 40 percent principals.

Career counseling is a new term in Nepal. Only a few top schools in Bhaktapur are using career counseling tools effectively.

How do the 58 percent of principal know the term career counseling?

Figure: 2. Most principals know Career Counseling through Social Media

Have the principals who know the term career counseling conducted some form of career counseling programs at their school?

No! The proper career counseling in school from career counseling expert is absent in all of the visited schools. Few of them informed us that they conduct some form of informative and advising counseling program at school. Such as motivation speech and student teacher career discussion program.

From 1-10, how do the principals rank the importance of career counseling in their schools?

 Figure:3. All the principals tend to believe that Career Counseling is utmost necessary

Career and educational choice of the students is important to the administration of the schools. 100% of the principals interviewed informed us that they know about their passed out students’ chosen career and education choice after SEE. According to them, the students most chosen career was management and science while only a few students choose the humanities and technical fields.

Figure 4: According the survey, most of the principal, 92%, felt the need of the career counseling for students.

Conclusion

Why is career counseling necessary in secondary school level?

It does not mean that only the confused students need the career counseling. Today, varieties of available career and education options and opportunity, which might be influenced students to pick up wrong education for the career. An Indian study shows that 1 in 3 students are unhappy with the course they picked. That is nearly half a million dissatisfied college students! Such figures only point to one clear truth – the importance of career guidance in schools.

The age group (14-18 years old) require career counseling the most. After grade 10 they need to decide the education for their career. A number of students pick specific subjects simply because their friends are opting for them while some decide according to their parents’ wishes. Only a few select subjects are based on their interests. Even this is usually chosen without knowing if their preferred subjects would lead them to their desired careers or not.

Career counselors believe that secondary schools are the platforms where students explore, experiment and enhance their life skills. It is during adolescence that they learn to communicate and interact with diverse groups, acquire problem-solving skills, polish their critical thinking abilities and recognize the importance of teamwork. Therefore, counselors suggest that secondary school students should be provided with appropriate career guidance in school level so that they can make informed decisions about their higher and professional studies.

Here are the few reasons that career counseling is important for students: 

• It helps the student understand their own strengths, interest, and values and lets them know what education and career they would be suited for.
• It helps students understand the career options that they fit in, and plan how to pursue them. It helps the students to build self-confident on their education and career decision. Subsequently, doing well in their chosen education field.
• It gives them a platform to voice their opinion about what they would like to pursue, as well as discuss the obstacles that they may be worried about. For example, with their parents.

Career counseling plays a vital role at crucial turning points in the lives of students. Students are seeking the good guidance and support in both their school and parents for their education and career. If the principal of the school understands the value of career counseling for students’ life and implements the necessary career counseling tools then the chances of the students reaching the career of their dream can be a possibility.

[:en]

I will not be a successful person if I get low grade in academics.

Is it a myth? 

SEE (Secondary Education Examination) is the first national-level examination for students. In this year, 2017/2018, there were 4,51,532 regular examinees, out of them 3,51,826 students secured the grade A plus, A, B plus, B, C plus  and C while 99,706 gets  the D plus, D, E plus, E grade.

There exist a lot of reasons why students are doing poorly in school. The major reason according to us is that since every student has unique abilities, skills and qualities, we cannot judge all of them through one standardized testing system. We are not suggesting that standardized system has no place for assessment, but since it has become the ONLY system, we are seeing the worst of what it can do.  ‘If you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will believe to be a fool, at its life.’

In average, people with low academic ability tend to have low confidence in their ability that they tend to choose jobs that pay them less. In contrary to that, we are sharing with you the real life story of person who is running a major company who has not completed her SLC (Now SEE). More and more, personalities across Nepal have outshined the ‘over-patronized’ SLC and excelled in various areas without its merits. Certainly, passing in your SEE is an advantage, but if not... there are always other opportunities which might bring you more success.

This success story is of Mrs. Ram Laxmi Twoyana, the owner of Shree Navaras Herbal Industries. Her struggle to change her dream to reality without SEE has inspired us.

What is SEE?

The Secondary Education Examination, abbreviated as SEE, is the final examination in the secondary school system of Nepal. Every student must take this examination for completing the 10th grade of their academic study (according to new Education Act), before they join higher secondary or intermediate level education (SLC).

SEE is the ‘Iron Gate’ – what happens if one gets the less then C grade?

Getting a good grade in SEE opens doors for the maximum numbers of courses as well as many jobs opportunities. The scenario is such that the students’ grade of SEE examination determines their further subject choices rather than their interests and the labour market. Most of us think that a low grade in SEE (grade C or below) is the end of their world as it minimizes the chances of further education and job prospects. That is true to some extent, but there are always more possibilities in life. For a lot of youth, education (through academics) is not made for them, as an amount of hard-work does not seem to bring any fruitful result. You should not consider yourself as the ‘black sheep’ in your family or in school, rather recognize your abilities and passion and take the best route to get there. Academic path is not always the best way to reach your dream career.

Successful life story without SLC

Mrs. Ram Laxmi Twoyana is living in Suryabinayak and had not completed her SEE (earlier SLC). She has now her own company, Shree Navaras Herbal Industries. Her life and work experience in her own words.

“I was interested in the field of Ayurvedic science from my childhood. Some bad experiences in my life impressed me about this sector. Normal chemical medicines were not effective to her. I found that if I applied herbal medical method to my mother’s sickness, she would be with me longer period of time. From that, my desire to work on this sector was increased. But I didn’t have any idea about whether I could work, study and its minimum education requirements. Initially for a few years I worked in the carpet factory.  I did not want continue because I hated working there, even though it paid for me and my mother.

One day, through my friends I got the opportunity to work at Ayurvedic shop and decided to make this work my future career. After working for two years, I took a six months training provided by Nepal Ayurvedic institute and later took two more months of training from Red Cross Society.

 I then started my own company with as little find as Rs.5000. It took me more than two years to understand and recognize individual herbals and their healing process. I read several Ayurvedic science books to extend my knowledge about herbals medicine and how they worked.”

Currently, she has hired three employees to run the company. This company takes advantage of the opportunities that Nepal provides – Herbals. She has expanded her initial capital/investment by over 10 folds in less than 2 years. She says, “We have various floras that define us and using that sustainably can be the key to success here in Nepal. Till now, I am very satisfied with my social business and don’t regretted failing in SLC.”

Summing up, getting the low grade in SEE, doesn’t mean the end of the world. There are a lot of possible career options where SEE grades do not matter.

So find out about your abilities and follow your dreams. Click this link for detailed information about education qualification requirements for jobs and its overview. https://jobedudb.careerdishanepal.org/jobs

 

[:]

[:en]

On 16 of June 2018, Kingdom Star School’s Hostel coordinator, Suresh Kumar Khati organized the closing session of career counseling program for this year.

We conducted Career Orientation, Labour Market workshop, Psychometric Assessment, My Future Pro and Individual Career Counseling to 23 young students, age group of 14 to 19 years old.

On the closing program, there were 2 passed out students, studied Bachelor of Hotel Management and Registered Nurse. They shared their personal story, how do they come to choose the education they are studying.

Another guest, CDN COO, and Career Counselor Hari Krishna Dahal explained the importance of individual determination to be the success in any career. He has given the example of famous person from the different careers, Neeldavids Salon of Hair & Beauty and Fashion designer Prabal Gurung . He also added no jobs are small; anyone can do their interesting job and can be famous if one has regular effort and strong determination on the respective career only.

Similarly, students who have participated in career counseling program shared their experience of how they benefited from the CDN Services to choose the right career.And also, Mrs. Kamala khaati distributed the Psychometric Assessment Result to the students.

The chair person of the ceremony, coordinator Mr.Suresh Kumar Khati wraps up the program by telling how one person desires make the world different. Definitely, regular effort to gain the goal is prerequisite but nothing is impossible. “If the late Edmund Percival Hillary did not desire to climb the top of the Mountain Everest first time, he never could reach there, If the Steven Paul Jobs did not dream to provide people the smartest phone ever,  then today no one has I Phone.” So finding a desired career where individual interest, strength, and abilities met is the way of achieving success.

[:]

On 16 of June 2018, Kingdom Star School’s Hostel coordinator, Suresh Kumar Khati organized the closing session of career counseling program for this year.

We conducted Career Orientation, Labour Market workshop, Psychometric Assessment, My Future Pro and Individual Career Counseling to 23 young students, age group of 14 to 19 years old.

On the closing program, there were 2 passed out students, studied Bachelor of Hotel Management and Registered Nurse. They shared their personal story, how do they come to choose the education they are studying.

Another guest, CDN COO, and Career Counselor Hari Krishna Dahal explained the importance of individual determination to be the success in any career. He has given the example of famous person from the different careers, Neeldavids Salon of Hair & Beauty and Fashion designer Prabal Gurung . He also added no jobs are small; anyone can do their interesting job and can be famous if one has regular effort and strong determination on the respective career only.

Similarly, students who have participated in career counseling program shared their experience of how they benefited from the CDN Services to choose the right career.And also, Mrs. Kamala Khaati distributed the Psychometric Assessment Result to the students.

The chair person of the ceremony, coordinator Mr.Suresh Kumar Khati wraps up the program by telling how one person desires make the world different. Definitely, regular effort to gain the goal is prerequisite but nothing is impossible. “If the late Edmund Percival Hillary did not desire to climb the top of the Mountain Everest first time, he never could reach there, If the Steven Paul Jobs did not dream to provide people the smartest phone ever,  then today no one has I Phone.” So finding a desired career where individual interest, strength, and abilities met is the way of achieving success.

[:en]

We conducted Career Orientation Program and Labour Market Workshop to 23 young students studying in Kingdom Star High School, Taukhel on 26th May 2018.

To explain the importance of having the specific target to the student our Career Counselor started the program by giving the example of pancha pandaba’s (five brothers) Arjuna of Mahabharata Kal (era) how he concentrated and focused in his target and hit the bull’s eyes. Similar manner, if the students know the specific career interest on time and study the respective educational courses then they will be reached the desired destination in the short period of time.

At the end of the interactive program, students learnt important of career counseling to have an informed career, important of working in the interested sector, expansive job sectors of Nepal, and their details. All day informative program runs by our Career counselor Hari Krishna Dahal with the help of Susma Lohola and Shrijana KC.

[:]

We conducted Career Orientation Program and Labour Market Workshop to 23 young students studying in Kingdom Star High School, Taukhel on 26th May 2018.

To explain the importance of having the specific target to the student our Career Counselor started the program by giving the example of pancha pandaba’s (five brothers) Arjuna of Mahabharata Kal (era) how he concentrated and focused in his target and hit the bull’s eyes. Similar manner, if the students know the specific career interest on time and study the respective educational courses then they will be reach the desired destination in the short period of time.

At the end of the interactive program, students learnt important of career counseling to have an informed career, important of working in the interested sector, expansive job sectors of Nepal, and their details. All day informative program was ran by our Career counselor Hari Krishna Dahal with the help of Susma Lohola and Shrijana KC.

[:en]

According to gti media research, more than half (54%) of the students who took part in the survey said that their parents tried to exert influence over their choice of course or career.

We have met a lot of people who are studying parents’ choice where Grishma, is the one, who is struggling to study on her interesting career. But she is unsure about she will be able to convince her parents or not for the study on her desired career.

Grishma is waiting for her SEE (Secondary Education Examination) result which is publishing after a few weeks. “I want to be the CEO (Chief Executive Officer) of a bank and want to work on the management sector because I am good at maths, I think I will not be bored to work on my interested sector and I already researched on it too. But especially my mother wants me to be Doctor so I do not think that I can go against to my mother’s interest. I try to convince her frequently but I am not able to do so. So I decided to work on her interests for few couples of years and then come back to work on my own interested area” Said Grishma.

In the context of Nepal majority of parents try to impose career of their choice for their children. Children cannot defence their parent decision for many reasons. The most of the reasons for studying parents choice are, children do not know their interested area, children do not have enough information about labour market, children do not know the detail information about respective career, children might confuse to choose the one in varieties of jobs and others and parents to tend to take the decision for them.

A lot of things influence one to make a single decision in our life. Whether choosing the lifelong career is one of the crucial decisions. Sometimes, we do not think about the consequences of our decision. Deciding certain career means decide to live a life of your choice. Definitely, most of the people want to spend their life happily and successfully. For example, if you do not like the things what you have to do even for the all-day what will happen? You can imagine the terrible situation you have to face. And, think about the long-term situation what will happen if you choose the wrong career for whole life. Even if it means earning a high income or social status.

If you strongly interested in a specific career, be crystal clear, do some research, its demand, scope, benefits and challenges through the internet and professional person of same career. For additional help to define you to your parents who want you to select the career of their choice, here are some helpful tips for you to win your parent's heart for the study on your interest.

[fruitful_tabs type="accordion" width="100%" fit="false"] [fruitful_tab title="1. Tell about your Role model"] Working for the specific career is not only earning money but your values, personalities, and life satisfaction comes to play. Tell your parents successful stories who working in the same job, their reputation, and status. Tell thoroughly pros and cons about the respective career and education. This might influence your parents. [/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="2.Tell clearly about your career goal"] Before you ask other, ask your gut, you better know yourself than others do. Listen to your gut and tell your parents what you really feel about the respective career, and why this career is important for you. Tell your parents clearly about your career goals and your future in the respective career, why and where you are planning to land. Definitely, your parents will be convinced if you tell them concisely about your career goal. [/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="3. Explore the strong and logical reasons why you fit in the respective career"] Definitely, parents always want to keep you on the safe side. Talking about challenging subject directly to the parents can influence to say no to you. In this case, you should be able to tell them logical reasons why you are choosing the certain subject. You can tell them how your Personalities, values, and abilities match to the certain career. Explain the benefits of choosing the certain career. It doesn’t mean that you have to walk in other steps. You have your own destination according to your personality. [/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="4. Take help of the professional career counselor"] In the final step, if you are not able to convince your parents then take a help of professional career counselor. A professional counselor will talk to you first and will explain to your parents why interest is mattered for individual life and successful career. [/fruitful_tab] [/fruitful_tabs]

Sometimes, parents are not able to find actual interest and abilities of children. Each individual has unique qualities, if they work in the same sector they will be happy and successful.

[:]

[:en]

If you are the person who does not get scared to share your queries and ideas in a mass then choose the career where your personality will be applied.

Are you the person who wants to do something in career but don’t know what might be fulfilling? Then, you should know your personality first. Finding, what makes me, “I” that can drive your life to success in short period of time. The general evidence we found is that people try to change our personality according to their careers.

A personality of the person plays the vital role in the career of the person. There are multiple benefits of knowing yourself better.

What is Personality?

Have you ever felt that something excites you more than usual? Have you ever noticed that some things influence you to make a decision than others? If you know the above question’s answer then you are on track. You are inherently unique and there are numerous benefits by knowing you personality and use it in your career and day to day life.

Here are the 6 reasons why you should know your personality for the career.

[fruitful_tabs type="accordion" width="100%" fit="false"] [fruitful_tab title="1.You can change your strength into the career">You can change your strength into the career"] Finding your strength is one of the most crucial aspects of recognizing personality. If you know, your inherent strengths and use in the career it will give you more confidence, pleasure and make you happy. For example, you are an introverted person, prefer to be on their own, and looking for the job where you have to work in the crowd, what will be the consequences? “Think about it.” But in the same time, if you looking for the job where there will not be more people, you can work on your own way, definitely, you would love it right. So, you can choose the career where strength matches. [/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="2.You can approach your career in a new way"] Are you really satisfied with what you are doing right now? What kind of working responsibly do you want to carry out most of the time? You might like to innovate your own ideas but in reality, you are following others. These instances, the career tortures you rather than give you happiness. You can illuminate this gap by knowing your personalities. You can approach your career in your way by starting new entrepreneurship or by looking for the job where your personality matches. [/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="3. You can choose the working environment"] What kind of working environment do you like the most? What kind of place are you more productive? To be happy in the workplace is essential to be more productive and creative. After knowing yourself better, it will be easy to choose the working environment without any hesitation. [/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="4. You can be happy and successful at the same time"]Who does not deserve both happiness and success in their life! But there are lots of external and internal factor may determine you to be none of them. You might be the person who loves to help others and choose the career what gives you satisfaction. If you do the things, what you really love then you can conduct it in the best way which can be profitable too. Which could give you pleasure at the same time happiness too. [/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="5. You will always love to return to work after weekend and holiday"] Most of the people hate to go back work after weekend and holiday. Can you imagine what could be the reason behind it? Maybe they can give the various reasons for it but one reason can be that ‘the work they are doing is not what they love’. [/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="6. You can improve your weakness"]Everyone has an uncomfortable part in their life. Do not make mistake to carry out your weakness first. It’s a lot of work to improve your mistake and enhance your strength. Nothing is really impossible as frequent practices can help you to improve, but improving your strength can is the lot easier and can get you a long way. [/fruitful_tab] [/fruitful_tabs][:]

[:en]

Post SEE and midst of +2 exams it is not unsual for youths to be confused and possibly misjudge their further education and career. Some of the youths may have the specific career interests but might not know about the available education options while some of them might be completely unaware about the future career.

To really understand if that is the case, we conducted a small survey on 30 youths in Bhaktapur. The number of respondents according to their educational level were: SEE appeared 3, +2 level 9, Bachelor 17 and 1 respondent from the Master level.

We know that this small survey cannot generalize all individual Nepali youths as the answer could vary from individual to individual. However, it surely will provide us with an insight to the level of confusion for the locals. Here is the Bhaktapur survey’s findings:

Career Decision Source: Field Survey 2018

According to the survey, more than three-quarter want to career and education decision themselves while the rest let their parents and friends decide for them.

How are the youths making decisions by themselves?

If youth have enough information about individual personalities and available career, they become more comfortable to take career decision themselves. They recognize the matching career they are passionate about and change their inherent passion into a career. On the other hand, youths who really do not know themselves usually tend to follow other's trend, follow friends' interests.

Are the youths that are making decisions themselves completely clear about their career choices?

Yes, to some extent. According to the responses, half repondants were clear about what they want to do for their career.

However, we found a very high 23.3% youths that were completely unaware of their career choices. They were either confused about their choices or unaware of the possibilities in Nepal.

What was striking was that even after choosing the certain career, most of the youth seem confused about the education pathway to reach that certain career.

How clear are the youths to decide the best education to reach the targeted career option?

In short, not so clear. According to the responses, only 26.67 percentages were crystal clear about their education, whereas more than 70 percentages of youth are clear or somehow unclear about the education that will take them to their desired career.

Why is that the case?

Definitely lacking enough information is the major case. There are different educational option to reach certain career, without knowing these option regardless of whether one studies or not, this does not lead individual anywhere.

What form of information do the youths need to make the right career choices?

1. Know yourselves

We cannot make right choices without understanding ourselves. Understanding ourselves mean that we should be able to accurately answer the following questions.

• What are my interesting areas?
• What things give me pleasure?
• What are my values?
• Why do I like what I like?

If you are not able to answer the questions, or somehow confused, there is a different counseling tool that is introduced in Nepal for the first time. You can understand your personalities and interest through that.

2. Know the Job market

More than 300 jobs exist in Nepal. Just knowing that helps. Around 20 job sectors (Agriculture, Engineering, Social work, Media…) exists. When vast choices are provided, the youths can find their right career for themselves.

3. Know your ability and limitations

Without understanding what you can do and what you can’t makes career choices even more difficult. Even after completing the education, one might not be able to give their best in the said career sector. List out your individual abilities and limitations. This will be a step forward for a more reflective way to decide right career according to your inherent talents.

4. Understand the educational choices

Same career option can have more than one education choices. Not all education needs to be academic. Some jobs would be benefitted by either professional courses or training. There is education system which will help you to know education option that you can choose to have the certain career.

We learnt that the youths who consider themselves their own decision makers tend not to know about what education to choose. There seems to be an overwhelming amount of confusion regarding education and career for all the levels of youths (SEE, +2, Bachelors and Masters).[:]

[:en]

Members from Career Disha Nepal had travelled all the way to Portugal in March this year (2018). There we learnt a lot amongst other, about how to hold workshops and to plan an effective scheduling focused on youth workers. We tried out all that we learnt in the 5 days ‘Career Helper Training’. We have consequently listed out the major 5 aspects we learnt from the ‘successful’+ training. (+we found that out through the reflective sessions)[fruitful_tabs type="accordion" width="100%" fit="false"] [fruitful_tab title="1.      Stay close to the context and stay focused"]Most training follows this, and it need not be reiterated that staying close to the target and not getting distracted by other topics is a must. What needs to be emphasized however is that the attendants do need to know the concrete targets and the expectations from the training. Understanding the final output of the training should be a priority.

Make sure that the training is well planned, written & documented and the plan is shared among the trainees.[/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="2.      The training members should get to know each other"]The training is not only between the trainees and trainer but also to a great extent between the trainees themselves. Especially for the youth workers, knowing the experiences of different organization and how different challenges were tackled is sometime greater than the content of the training itself. Getting to know the trainees closely, making them comfortable, helps the team to be open to each other which undoubtedly will bring the best in each of us. Partnership and networking is therefore created without much friction.

Create a lot of team building games. Be certain that the trainees know each other’s names and understand their organizations closely.  [/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="3.      Make it FUN"]Youth workers need to extrapolate all that they have learnt and need to use their experience to their youths. Youths amongst other things, cannot (or will not) retain a lot of information if they are bored. One can make the training interesting by using more than 1 method for disseminating information. Examples can include PowerPoint, Drawing, Story-telling, training related games etc.

Recognize if the audience is getting bored and when they are, use related games and energizers to spice up the learning technique.[/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="4.      Move on to practical real-life examples after the theoretical knowledge if possible"]How exactly does learning about the youth psychology help the youth workers to better understand the youths? How does understanding the labour market help youths better orient their education? Understanding is just one step, making the learning outcomes become visible is what needs to happen.

Make sure that the youth-centred-trainings explain the direct practical benefits and use the training time, through various methods, to actually show how to use the learning in real life.[/fruitful_tab] [fruitful_tab title="5.      Reflect upon the training at the end of the day"]What use of the training if it does not include personal voices? Reflecting on the training session can better orient the trainers as well as trainees. It too can enhance the relationship between the two.

Make sure that the trainees get ample time to reflect on what they have learnt. It can be done in a group at the end of each of the training session.[/fruitful_tab] [/fruitful_tabs]

[:]