Naheed Qasim
Pulwasha living in Karachi, is single and in her 40s. She started her own business, but only after a long journey of moving around and many different types of job. Pulwasha worked several times as a legal secretary, a job for which she is qualified and experienced. She finds the job easy, but also boring, lacking any challenge. ‘It’s the wrong life for me; I should not be working in a law firm. But that is what I can do and you get a good wage. Having so many jobs was ‘a search for what I wanted to do, she believes.
This is not only the story of Pulwasha but every young educated citizen of Pakistan is passing from the same dilemma but what is the reason behind it. Everyone knows and accept the crucial fact that students have been misguided and mislead in Pakistan. Every year thousands of graduates pass out of their colleges or universities but they have little or absolutely no idea what career are they interested in and how to enter that field. Education and career plays a pivotal role in journey of one’s life from birth till death. If students’ education best fit with their abilities they become one of the successful people 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 force their children to choose the field they decided for them. Neither the parent due to their ignorance due to which they can’t chose proper subject and proper filed nor the teachers due to lack of professionalism are able to guide them. Lack of guidance is very serious problem which students face at schools, colleges and universities as they receive no or very little career counseling from their teachers or institute’s management. As teachers’ their self lack the knowledge about professional career market they stay out of touch from leading trends and thus, cannot provide proper guidance and assistance in mentoring their students. This is one of the reasons for unrest amongst the youth in Pakistan because students graduate and gets into the market without having any kind of knowledge about the market trends and appropriate set of skills, which can help them in gaining and maintaining a job in their future.
It is a widely used concept in many of the developed countries, they have counseling facilities to guide students and professionals in secondary school, college and university level but unfortunately it is not very well recognized concept in Pakistan. Why there is no career counseling facility at secondary school level in Pakistan, and why government and educational institutes are not addressing the problems.
This is one of the main reason that Pakistan is not included the list of the developed countries because a proper guidance and counseling is not present for Pakistani youth so they are wasting their energy in a wrong direction
“My young friends, I look forward to you as the real makers of Pakistan, do not be exploited and do not be misled. Create amongst yourselves complete unity and solidarity. Set an example of what youth can do. Your main occupation should be in fairness to yourself, to your parents, in fairness to the State, to devote your attention to your studies. If you fritter away your energies now, you will always regret”
These are remarkable words of Mr. Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s speech. Why he only addressed youth in his these words because he knew the power of the youth Students are very important asset of any nation and that is the reason why our great leader Mr. Mohammad Ali Jinnah always addressed students and tried to make them realize their worth and how can they invest their energy in order to make better and brighter Pakistan.
So, government should arrange workshops for parents, teachers for secondary school level, college level and for professionals especially to the back ward areas of Balochistan and Sindh, where youth are already facing many challenges in the field of education, to provide information, knowledge and guidance that how they can guide the students for their career and can motivate them to achieve their goal. In this way students can get basic knowledge about any profession before deciding to take it as their future profession. As a well-coordinated lifelong guidance system generates coherence of education, training and employability support, and, most importantly, clarifies available options for citizens. Guidance is a positive response to social and economic instability: science and practice of adaptability.
Psychology says that every individual shows sign of interest right from their childhood when a kid develops his or her sense of reasoning. Parents should first take the time out to observe and identify their child’s interest and then, provide guidance, opportunities and exposures to the child, accordingly.
This issue can only be resolved if parents, teachers, students, government and educational organizations are on the same page, very unfortunate that students are on the page of Facebook, teachers on linked in and parents are tweeting. This is not a process which can be completed overnight, Educational institutes and Employer Organizations should collaborate on regular basis, by offering bulk apprenticeship opportunities, in order to promote professional career development and counseling of students. Strong relationship between educational sector and jobs market is very significant for any country development and for success of any person.
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