CAREER GUIDANCE

Traditional Model Of The Career Guidance And Postmodern Approaches

Traditional Model Of The Career Guidance And Postmodern Approaches

Introduction

The National Plan for Higher Education (NPHE) (Department of Education, 2001:3) highlights the "chronic mismatch between the output of higher education and the needs of a modernising economy", emphasising the "shortage of highly trained graduates in fields such as science, engineering, technology and commerce [which] has been detrimental to social and economic development". This report (2001:4) furthermore defines the agenda for the role of higher education in the reconstruction and development programme, and highlights the importance of "Human resource development: the mobilisation of human talent and potential through lifelong learning". Although the report focuses on the need for programmes intended to correct past imbalances in the fields of science, engineering and technology, it also stresses the need for career-oriented training in the field of education. However, it does not sufficiently deal with the growing crisis in teacher enrolment in South Africa. The fact, that one of the objectives of the NPHE is to shift the balance in enrolments in higher education (humanities: business and commerce: science, engineering and technology) from the current ratio of 49%:26%:25% to 40%:30%:30%, bears testimony to this statement. The above adjustments should be read in conjunction with the following: Radical changes in people's lifestyle and career planning as a result of the phenomenal technological advancement and information explosion of the 21st century have brought career-counselling practice to a crossroads. New careers requiring new skills emerge and disappear equally quickly. Muller (1999:17) and Naicker (1994:33) claim that people change careers an average of five times during their career-lifetimes. Career counsellors play an increasingly important integrating role in the effective planning of an individual's career, as new skills are constantly required.

Discussion

Career counselling should not to be neglected in schools, especially not in the traditionally disadvantaged schools. The current perturbing trend in South African schools is to replace the qualified career-counselling teacher with one who teaches an academic subject. This, and the reduction in the number of career-counselling periods, has had a negative effect in that many learners do not even know how to calculate their merit scores or what the selection criteria are for courses at tertiary institutions. The fact that they know even less about the spectrum of careers from which they may choose, indicates that this alarming tendency should be dealt with expediently. Learners should be informed about higher-order needs, which are essential for self-development. Factors like work ethics, career satisfaction and remuneration should not be the only measure of career satisfaction.

Career counselling

Plug, Louw, Gouws and Meyer (1987:84) regard career counselling as a composite of all counselling procedures related to the choice of and preparation for a career, namely interviews, interest questionnaires, aptitude tests and personality tests. Super, in Malan (1999:15) defines career counselling as follows:

The process of helping a person to develop and accept an integrated and adequate picture of him/herself and of his/her role in the world of work, to test this concept against reality ...