By: Mudasir Ahmad
Every student is naturally endowed with myriad of abilities of doing something big in life but what is required to achieve the best of the abilities is surely proper guidance. Nobody is a special learner and all need guidance to achieve milestones.
Lack of guidance could lead to making wrong choices and subsequently one’s potential could be wasted. When I was a student of B.Sc final year and was in the lab performing dissection over the Prawn to see its anatomical features-I tried quite hard to dissect but couldn’t. Meanwhile my professor came in and as he saw me struggling to perform dissection, he encouraged me to go a little further stating that all I needed was focus and confidence. The statement boosted my confidence as he continued to guide me through the process. As I went on following his guidelines, I was finally able to perform dissection. One has to follow the advice of others who are more learned and experienced.
How about the same approach in our schools and Higher Secondary institutions? It would be very conducive to organize small workshops from middle up to higher secondary level as students feel desirous to seek solutions for their problems at an early stage. Career based avenues should not be limited to higher education only rather such initiatives should be promoted at the school level whereby a concreted base can be built up.
There have been many different connotations and understandings of the aims and objectives of education and according to John Dewey, Education is the development of all those capacities in an individual which enable him/her to control his/her environment and fulfil his possibilities. For Gandhi, Education is drawing out of the best in child- body, mind and spirit. In a broader sense, if we look carefully at the term Education, it means expanding the horizons of learning.
Career guidance in the context of education is visualised and interpreted as a sort of assistance given to students in drawing out their inner capabilities as Frobel quoted that Education is the enfoldment of what is already enfolded in the germ. So, it is clearly understood that there is already something embedded within an individual. Indeed, a teacher can shape the potential of a student well by knowing the different problems or issues which students face in dealing with a subject of subjects.
Students sometimes fail to achieve targets and prior guidance is therefore a tool that would make them quite resourceful and develop in them more ingenuity and efficiency to perform better at every stage. It has been noticed that students often face a lot of problems while selecting a proper course in colleges due to lack of proper guidance and sometimes chose subjects that they later regret. It is a fact that a good number of students quit their studies midway just because they made a bad choice when selecting a particular subject.
Ideally speaking, every student must have proper guidance from the early stage of education and a sustained and institutionalised effort will surely ensure that they make appropriate choices at every stage of their academic career. This way, there potential will never go waste and the society will benefit from their contributions.
The Author is M.Sc, B.Ed and working as a teacher. (ahangermudasir911@gmail.com)
