Career Orientation: Making The Right Choices

Time and circumstances matter greatly when students have to decide about their future. Even those who help them take vital decisions on what they want to become should equally of essence. This is why the school systems in Cameroon places emphasis on the role of guidance counsellors. But the availability of staff in this sector and the way they operate within the school environment is also another concern that requires critical examination.      
Friday 18 October, 2024 was observed nationwide as the national day for Guidance-Counselling in both secondary and primary schools across the country. Officials in the two sectors went into action, holding meetings to ensure that the 2024/2025 academic year not only goes on smoothly, but equally to guarantee that the pupils and students are given the opportunity to follow the right path in the pursuit of their goals.     
While secondary education observed the day under the theme: “Guidance-counselling and the services it offers in schools”, the Ministry of Basic Education looked at the discipline as; “Guidance-counselling: an opportunity to consolidate inclusive, healthy, safe and protective basic education”. Tackling the issues from different fronts could just be another way of spreading the net wider to guarantee maximum results in a context where the hurdles keep growing on a daily basis. Modern trends and their ramifications have brought along numerous challenges within the school milieu in the country. Parents, teachers, the school environment and the State are regularly confronted with the difficult choices that must be made as efforts to continue in providing sound education for youth in the country. Getting the usual slogan of the youth being seen as the future of the country demands that note be taken of the fact that the choices made by the pupils or students determine who they become in the future. Yet, in spite of this important consideration, the children are not always aware of the openings that exist. Even when they do, their parents and benefactors could even be obstacles to their career ambitions in instances where decisions are imposed on them.     
By highlighting the role that guidance-counselling plays in moulding the youth, the idea is to pinpoint the fact that in cases where doubts exist, there should be neutral persons knowledgeable enough to help the students to make informed choices. Unfortunately, they are at times not allowed to exercise their duties as they should. Either the school environment imposes strange options on them or they are hindered by misguided parents who may want to enforce their dreams on their children. A parent who is more concern about who will take care of him/her in their old age might not be totally wrong. It could be a legitimate preoccupation. But when it gets to the extent of changing the career orientation of a children without taking into consideration their academic abilities, could spell a real disaster. Such insistence has the potential of clearly destroying the child in the long run.     
Evidently, the paucity of guidance-counsellors within the educational system in the country is already a source of worry. Thousands of students across the country have had to wade through school life by simple trial and error. Without actually being sure of what they want to do in future. Not even knowing the chances that exist is in itself disturbing. And when they are given the opportunity to know the available openings, there ought to be a plus. That means where parents or their benefactors must come in, it should be in collaboration with those trained to permit the children to take informed decisions. It cannot be a matter of satisfying the whims and caprices of the parents. Emphasis ought to be on helping the pupil and student to follow their path on the basis of their individual aptitudes.     
Of course, viewing the position of guidance-counselling only from the need to get a good job could be reductive. The level of delinquency and the social deviance being witnessed in the school milieu has been such that all hands have to be on deck to salvage the situation. Instead...