Do you know who’s Riya? Riya is a class 9 student who is not very sure about what career, course, and subjects to choose. She needs support for her academic success as well as career planning. Hence, she goes to her teacher for academic help and is searching for a good career counsellor for future planning.
Like Riya, there are many students in India and abroad who have to look for two different people to fulfil both of these aspirations. Imagine, if the teachers become career counsellors. How easy the process would be for students. They can discuss their academic and career aspirations at the same from the same person.
Looking at the present scenario, the roles of these professionals are dissimilar. However, the purpose is the same, child development and career success. Before discussing the impact of a teacher becoming a career counsellor, let’s understand their tasks, roles, and responsibility and also the difference between teaching and counselling.
What is Teaching?
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The art of teaching is the art of assisting discovery. – Mark Van Doren |
Teaching is a broad term that is not limited to the classroom only. Teaching doesn’t only mean student-teacher interaction. It also includes student-student interaction, student-parent interaction, and parent-teacher interaction. The process of teaching means instructing individuals about different topics, subjects, society and anything that one wishes to understand.
We can summarize teaching as the engagement with individuals that helps them understand the application of knowledge, concepts and processes.
What is Career Counselling?
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Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life. – Confucius |
According to Confucius, a Chinese Philosopher & Poet, you should do your job with love. If you love what you do, you will never feel that it’s a job. It will become your passion and lifestyle.
The process that helps individuals understand their interests, skills, likes, dislikes, and abilities, is called “Career Counselling”. If a student gets career guidance and counselling, his/her career plan becomes more reliable and successful.
Today, 93% of schools don’t have professional counsellors leading to the necessity of 15 lakh counsellors for over 315 million students. The process of career counselling refers to analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of a student and ends up suggesting the right career path.
Role of a Teacher
Children are like clay and a teacher moulds them into good human beings by bringing the best out of them. Teachers are the professionals who are meant to give direction to their student’s life, help them in academics, and develop a purpose to live.
The role of a teacher can be defined as:
- Sharing Knowledge
- Making Learning Process Fun & Interesting
- Building Real-Life Connections
- Encouraging Students to do Better
- Tracking & Analyzing their Performances and Setting-Up Goals
- Help Students Become Better Human Beings
Role of a Career Counsellor
Career counsellors are professionals who help students find the purpose of their careers. They help them analyze their potential, and interests, and accordingly, suggest the best career path.
Considering the role of a career counsellor refers to the:
- Inspecting career aspirations, concerns, and uncertainties of the clients.
- Reviewing their personal and educational undertakings.
- Analyze their aptitude, personality, and adjacent tests.
- Proposing career-related options, courses, subjects to study, suitable colleges, etc.
- Informing clients about career-related opportunities.
Difference Between Teaching & Counselling: Teacher Vs Career Counsellor
As discussed above, the roles of teachers and career counsellors are different from each other. People think that these two professions are the same. However, both are different with different importance.
Teaching is more sort of clear in structure. There’s a proper syllabus, the students are categorized according to their classes. Teachers have a complete structure of what to teach and how to teach. They take frequent exams to understand the growth of students.
Teachers are responsible for their academic as well as moral development. They also take care of the extra-curricular activities of their students. They spend most of their time with students and that’s why they are the first influencers for students.
Coming to career counsellors, are qualified and trained professionals, responsible for the academic, personal/social, and career development of students. Career counsellors take care of the career aspect for their students. They make sure that the students are understanding their strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes, abilities and interests. After analyzing these factors, they suggest students a suitable career path to follow.
Not only this, but career guidance counsellors also speak to both parents and kids both and bridge the gap between them. These professionals make sure that there’s no conflict between students and parents in terms of career selection.
In short, we can say that a teacher is more into instructing students while the job of career counsellors is to listen, guide and empower students. Teachers are appointed for providing direction and career counsellors, for facilitation.
Impact of Teaching+Counselling
Career counselling for students is one of the biggest steps for their career success. However, teaching is the foundation of student development. Hence, teaching and counselling go hand in hand. If a teacher can understand the career aspects of students, this becomes an advantage for them as well as for students.
As teachers already have a student base. Therefore, they can easily create a strong network of students and parents.
Students even come to their teachers also for career planning and to create a perfect balance between studies and career building. However, most of the teachers can’t help those children as they don’t have enough knowledge of career counselling. It’s beneficial for teachers to be skilled in career planning and career counselling too.
There’s a difference between teaching and counselling. However, teachers can become great career counsellors as they know how to upskill students for academics and they just required an understanding of different careers, courses, colleges, psychometric tests, student assessments and more.
If you are an educator and want to become a skilled and trained career counsellor, upgrade your career with the Global Career Counsellor Program. This is an online career counselling course offered by Univariety in collaboration with UCLA Extension. The course is provided with blended learning, deep & extensive modules, live interactive sessions, recorded lessons, quizzes, and more.
Don’t wait!
Parul is an enthusiast writer, currently working at Univariety. Despite being from a technical educational background, she started her career in writing because of her passion. She loves sketching and doodling while enjoying a cup of black coffee. When she is not writing, she likes watching movies, travelling, and exploring new places.
2 Comments
Help me too for counseling as a global counsellor
Hello Gazala,
Please explain your concern and how can we help you. We will definitely assist you with the best possible solutions 🙂