Experts advocate career readiness centres to enrich students’ choices

To help students make informed decisions during their career selection, experts in the guidance and counseling sector have called for inclusion of career, college and university readiness centres in schools.

This they said will not only help students develop their career paths intelligently, but will also expose them to a wide range of other new professions aside the popular law, medicine, engineering, and other mainstream courses.

Guidance and Counselor expert, Soluzo Ekenta, while speaking at the unveiling of the newly introduced career, college and university centre of Greensprings School, said such institutions will help groom students and guide them to pick subjects they are very good at.She said it is very imperative for schools to hone students’ skills and give them opportunities that would help them streamline their career choices with their innate abilities in order to achieve their dreams.

On the challenges most students face when making a career choice she said, “One of the challenges is that most of them have dreams that they are not ready for, while some have very unrealistic dreams. But what I try to do is work with them. For instance, they want to play football, but they are not training enough, we encourage them to train with professionals.

“Another challenge is how to break it down for them so that they understand and get a more realistic goal. We live in an evolving world, and we must let them know the reality of the world. We can even help them to know that they can actually have two careers and be successful at them. So there is need for career readiness centres in schools to help these children in making great choices.”

The school’s deputy director of education, Dr. Berney Wilson said with the centre, students would get one on one counseling as regards their career.He said it is imperative for schools to have career readiness centers, as it would benefit them and the nation in the long run.He noted that more than 200 students have signed up already and would benefit because there was no limit and they can even operate it from home. Also, vice president, international markets and global business development, American College Testing (ACT), described the school as open-minded and progressive, adding that the centre also has an ACT corner, where students could also be tutored.