Meaning of Guidance:
Guidance is a
process through which an individual is helped to guide himself. Thus, guidance
stands for creating a spirit of self-dependence in the individual. It helps him
solve his own problems. It does not solve the problem for him. Evidently, in
guidance the focus of attention is the individual and not his problem.
In the guidance process, the individual is
helped to understand his assets and limitations in order that he may think
about his further development and may take decision about the same.
Definitions:
1.
“Process of assisting to adjust.” According to
Brewer, the word guidance should be used whenever an important activity is to
be learnt and assistance is needed by the individual to learn that activity and
adjust himself, whether that activity is the choice of leisure time activity or
habit of eating or behavior towards the opposite sex.
2.
“Establishing an effective relationship.”
Crawford thinks that student personnel work may be regarded as a means of
establishing a relationship between his total education experiences and his
personnel needs and potentialities, in an effective way.
3.
According to Crow and Crow,” Guidance is
assistance made available by personally qualified and adequately trained men
and women to an individual of any age to help him manage his own life
activities, develop his own points of view, make his own decisions and carry
his own burdens.”
4.
Process of helping every individual through his
own efforts. In the words of Ruth Strang,
“Guidance is a process
of helping every individual, through his own efforts, to discover and develop
his potentialities for his personal happiness and social usefulness.”
5.
“Guidance
is a process of enabling each individual to understand his abilities and interest
to develop them as well as possible and to relate them to life goals and
finally to reach a state of complete and matured self-guidance as a desirable
human element of the social order.”
—Traxler
6.
“Guidance
is the process of helping a person to develop and accept an integrated and
adequate picture of himself and of his role in the world of work, to test this
concept against reality and to convert it into reality with satisfaction to
himself and benefit to the society”.
—National
Vocational Guidance Association (USA)
CHARACTERISTICS
AND NATURE OF GUIDANCE:
1. Guidance
is promotion of the growth of the individual in self-direction.
2. Guidance
is the process of helping the individual in affecting changes in him.
3. Guidance
is helping the individual himself through his own efforts.
4. Guidance
is assisting an individual to find his place.
5. Guidance
is helping the individual to establish harmonious relationships.
6. Guidance
is assisting the individual to adjust himself.
7. Guidance
is helping the individual to make appropriate educational, vocational and
personal choices.
8. Guidance
programme is organized.
9. Guidance
programme has structure, system and personnel.
10. Guidance
consists of specialized services-testing, counseling, educational and
vocational information, placement and follow up.
11. Guidance
programme is an integral part of the school system.
12. Guidance
helps an individual to identify and develop his potentialities and talents.
13. Guidance
is a point of view that includes a positive attitude towards children.
SCOPE OF GUIDANCE
The scope of
guidance is bound to be vast as it has a broader meaning and wider connotation.
The scope of guidance therefore implies the extent, length, breadth, range,
comprehensiveness and variety of helping an individual to solve his problems. So,
the scope of guidance covers functionally all aspects of life.
The present
contemporary society is becoming more and more complex day-by-day. As a result
of this, the needs and problems of individuals are also increasing with the
increasing complexity of the society. This situation heavily demands an
organized programme of guidance.
1. Types of Guidance, viz. personal guidance, educational
guidance and vocational guidance.
2. Guidance for
adjustment of individual through socialized, curricular, co-curricular activities,
Community resources,
vocational opportunities, group life, group contacts etc.
3. Individual
Guidance Service.
4. Group Guidance
Service.
5. Role of different
personnel involved in guidance and counselling service.
6. Follow-up service in guidance.
7.Devices for collection of data through testing and non-testing
devices like achievement test, aptitude
test, personality
test, creativity test, intelligence test, attitude scale, interest inventory,
Interview
schedule.
Cumulative Record Card, observation, check list, rating scale and
socio-metric techniques
etc.
8. Organization of
guidance services.
9. Counselling services or techniques.
Need and Importance of Educational Guidance
According to Teacher
Training Programs Educational guidance is needed for the
following reasons
- Diversified Courses: The need of educational guidance
is realized where there are various types of courses to choose from. The
question of guidance does not arise where only one curriculum is taught to
all the students. A child has to be guided for selecting right educational
courses.
- Failure: Non-seriousness is the major
cause of not succeeding of the students in a particular course. If the
failed students or dropouts are not guided, they may become delinquent.
Such students must be given proper guidance to complete the study.
- Unsatisfactory Progress: Students often found neglect in
study. Educational guidance is needed when the students do not show satisfactory
progress or develop non-serious attitude in this study. It is essential to
guide them and show them the right path.
- Individual Differences: All children are not alike.
They differ in attitude, abilities and interests. Educational Guidance
helps them to select a right course according to his abilities.
- Environment: Educational Guidance is needed
to acquaint students in school or college environments. A student is
maladjusted when he is not properly oriented towards co the school and
college. Many lives are lost if the child is not treated well. Some
children are brought up in an atmosphere of love and overprotection. It is
here that educational guidance comes in. Guidance in school is also to be
given to gifted children as well as academically backward children so that
they can cope up with the studies according to their abilities.
Or
- Educational growth.
- Psycho-Social
adjustment.
- Good citizenship.
- Proper use of leisure
time.
- To minimize the
incidence of indiscipline.
- Help in total
development of the student.
- To supplement efforts
of home.
- To minimize mismatch
between education and employment.
- To identify and motivate
the students from weaker sections of society.
- To
help in wastage and stagnation.
TYPES OF GUIDANCE
1.
EDUCATIONAL GUIDANCE:
Educational guidance is a process of
assisting the individual student to reach optimum educational development. It
is a sort of guidance that is only rendered to the student community.
Educational
Guidance helps the students to make right choices, as well as make adjustments
in relation to schools, curriculum, courses and school life which is contribute
to the all-round development.
Definitions
of Educational Guidance
1. Brewer defines it as “Educational
Guidance is a conscious effort to assist in the intellectual
growth of an
individual-anything that has to do with instruction or with learning may come
under the term of guidance.”
2. Arthur
A. Jones defined Educational Guidance “as the
assistance given to pupils in their choices and adjustment with relation to
schools, curriculum, courses and school life.”
3. Ruth
Strang regards Educational Guidance “as something
intended to aid the individual in choosing an appropriate program and in making
progress in it.”
4. According
to Myers, “Educational Guidance is a process concerned
with bringing about between a pupil with his distinctive characteristics on the
one hand, and different opportunities and requirements on the other, a favorable
setting for the pupil’s development or education.”
5. For Dunsmoor and Miller, Educational Guidance is primarily
concerned with the student’s success in his educational career. It relates to
the student’s adjustment to school and to the preparation and carrying out of
suitable educational plans in keeping with his educational needs, abilities and
career interests.”
6. According to the Secondary Education
Commission, guidance involves the difficult of art of helping boys and
girls to plan their own future wisely in the full light of all the factors that
can be mastered about themselves and about the world in which they are to live and
work naturally.”
From the above, educational guidance
implies,
1. Assistance
in the promotion of the growth of the student in self-direction.
2. Assistance
in the attainment of self-direction of the student.
3. Assistance
in the process of learning.
4. Assistance
in the adjustment of the student.
5. Assistance
in discovering potentials of the student.
Major
Aims and Objectives of Educational Guidance:
1. To enable the child to know
in detail about the subjects and courses offered by schools that he might attend.
2. To help him to adjust to the
curriculum.
3. To assist the child to
secure information regarding the possibility and desirability of further
schooling.
4. To
help the child to know the purpose and function of different types of schools.
5. To assist
the child in knowing the requirements for admission in the school of his
choice.
6. To
help the child to adjust to the school, its rules, regulations and the social
life connected with it.
7. To
assist the pupil to understand himself, that is to understand his
potentialities, his strength and weaknesses.
8. To
help the child in developing good study habits.
9. To
assist him in selecting hobbies.
10. To
help the child in selection of subjects in accordance with his needs,
capacities and interests.
11. To
help the child in selecting the co-curricular activities.
12. To
help the child to derive maximum benefit out of the various school programmes.
13. To
give assistance to the child in solution of problems relating to study.
14. To
enable the child to know his progress in achievement from time to time.
15. To
assist the child in using his leisure time most profitably.
16. To
assist him in selection of a right vocation.
17. To
help the child or educand to participate in out-of-class educational activities
in which he can develop leadership and other social virtues.
18. To
help the child in building of a good social relationship.
19. To
help the child in knowing the availability of scholarships, stipends, loans
etc.
20. To
help the child to know the weak points of his educational achievement and
adopting remedial measures accordingly.
Need of Educational Guidance
1. Individual Differences.
Ø
Guidance
is needed because of individuals differ in intellectual abilities, interests,
motivation and also in their levels of aspirations.
Ø
To cater to the needs of individual students,
educational guidance is needed to be imparted in schools.
2. Need of Checking the Wastage and Stagnation in Education
Ø
We find that there is a huge wastage and
stagnation in education. Many students fail repeatedly and remain in the same
class for a number of years.
Ø
They feel difficulty in learning or acquiring
some or the other piece of knowledge and skill.
Ø
It leads to the wastage of human as well as
national resources. Such wastage and stagnation can only be checked through a
suitable program of educational guidance.
3. The Need of Making Right Educational Choices
Ø
Almost every system of education is based on two
assumptions.
Ø
The first is that every student should
strive for maximum self-development and the other is that every student should
make his place in the society as its useful member.
Ø
These two assumptions imply that the school and
community activities of a child should be based on some definite pattern.
Ø Educational
guidance services must assist the child to achieve this end by way of making
correct choices.
Ø
There are diversified courses where they have to
make selection of the subjects or activities.
Ø
The wrong choice of a subject or activity may
doom their career and future.
4. The Need of Proper Educational Adjustment
Ø
Adjustment to prevailing educational
environment is essential for the proper educational growth and well-being of
children.
Ø
The child enters the school directly from his
home environment. Here he finds a formal environment of education and gets
experiences that are quite novel and strange to him.
Ø
He needs
to be adjusted to these educational situations and environmental conditions.
Ø
He has to read, write, speak and participate in
the learning process-Drill work and home assignments have to be completed.
Ø
Participation in co-curricular activities is
required.
Ø
In this way the child faces so many adjustment
problems with regard to his educational environment and therefore needs proper
educational guidance.
5. Decision of Further Education
Ø
Students in the present system of education rush
to colleges or universities for high education irrespective of their aptitude
for higher studies.
Ø
Many of them do so because they do not have
appropriate knowledge of other professional courses or trainings.
Ø
There is a great need to provide proper guidance
with regards to the suitability of the individual to pursue higher education.
6. Making the Grade.
Ø
Another important area where educational
guidance is needed is the area of giving students help to progress
satisfactorily in the course chosen.
Ø
In our country, a large number of student fail
in schools, colleges and universities because of lack of educational guidance.
7. Education of Exceptional
Children
Ø
Generally, in our schools, the teacher proceeds
with the average student in mind with the result that gifted, slow learner,
deaf and mentally and physically handicapped, are not benefitted by classroom
teaching.
Ø
Educational guidance is most essential for
different categories of exceptional children, if we are interested in the
welfare of the individual and society.
Importance of Educational
Guidance
- Attitudes and
Forms of Behaviour
Ø
Every aspect of a person’s complex personality
pattern constitutes a significant factor of his total displayed attitudes and
forms of behaviour.
Ø
Guidance services which are aimed at bringing
about desirable adjustment in any particular area of experience must take into account
the all-round development of the individual.
2.
Recognition of Individual Differences
Ø
All human beings are similar in many
respects; individual differences must be recognized and considered in any effort’s
objectives in the conduct of his affairs.
3.
Maladjusted Factors
Ø
Existing social, economic, and political unrest
is giving rise to many maladjusted factors that require the co-operation of
experienced and thoroughly trained guidance counsellors and the individual with
a problem.
4. Continuing
Process
Ø
Guidance should be regarded as a continuing
process of service to an individual from young childhood through adulthood.
5. Guidance Service should not be Selective
Ø
Guidance service should not be limited to the
few who give observable evidence of its need, but should be extended to all
persons of all ages who can benefit there from, either directly or indirectly.
6. Individual Evaluation
Ø
Programs of individual evaluation and research
should be conducted, and accurate cumulative records of progress and
achievement should be made accessible for the guidance of workers.
Ø
Through the administration of well-selected
standardized tests and other instruments of evaluation, specific data
concerning degree of mental capacity success of achievement, demonstrated
interests, and other personality characteristics should be accumulated,
recorded, and utilized for guidance purposes.
VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE
Meaning and Definition:
Ø
Vocational guidance is assistance in
choosing a career or profession or in making employment or training decisions.
Ø
An example of vocational
guidance is, the meeting with a consultant who helps people figure out
what a good job would be for them based on their skills and qualifications.
The following are the few definitions
of vocational guidance:
1.
“Vocational
guidance is a facilitative process, a service rendered to the individual to aid
him in choosing and adjusting to an occupation.” —John D. Crites
2.
“Vocational
guidance is a process of assisting the individual to choose an occupation,
prepare for it, enter up on and progress on it”.
—National Vocational Guidance
Association
3.
“Vocational
guidance refers to the inevitable direction given to the care of new employees
in the selection process and in their assignment to particular types of work.”
—Dale Yoder
- Vocational guidance programme may consist
of advising the candidate as to what type of job he should select. It is
of utmost importance that the right man is selected for the right job. A
famous proverb goes like this ‘for round holes there should be round pegs
and for square holes there should be square pegs’.
5. The general conference of International
Labour Organization (I.L.O) in 1949 described vocational guidance as
“Assistance given to an individual in solving problems related to occupational
choice and progress with due regard for the individual’s characteristics and
their relation to occupational opportunity.”
OBJECTIVES OF VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE
Vocational guidance is the assistance
given to students in choosing and preparing for a suitable vocation. It is
concerned primarily of helping individuals to make decision and choices involved
in planning the future career decision and choices necessary in effecting
satisfactory vocational adjustment.
- Acquire Knowledge: The main objective of vocational guidance is
to assist the students to acquire such knowledge of the characteristics and
functions, duties, responsibilities and rewards of occupations that are
within the range of his choice.
- Discover Abilities and Skills: Another objective of vocational guidance according
to Education is to assist pupil to discover his own abilities and skills
and to fit them into general requirements of the occupation under
consideration.
- Evaluate Capabilities and Interests: Assisting pupil to evaluate his own
capabilities and interests with regard to their worth to him and to
society is yet another objective.
- Develop Attitude towards Work: Vocational guidance aims at helping the individual develop
an attitude towards work that will dignify whatever type of occupation he
may wish to enter.
- Exploration of Opportunity: Give exploration of opportunity in different areas of
school learning and vocational exploration that will enable the learner to
get the feel of several types of activities.
- Critical Thinking: Assisting the individual to think critically about various
types of occupations and to lean a technique for analyzing information
about vocations.
- Assisting the Mentally Handicapped: Assisting the mentally handicapped, the physically handicapped
or the economically handicapped to make the adjustments that will be best
for them in their struggle for a fuller life d for personal and social
welfare.
- Confidence in the Teachers: Instilling in the pupil a confidence in the teachers and
other guidance personal that will encourage him when he confers with them
on personal and vocational problems.
- Secure the Necessary Information: Assisting the pupil to secure the
necessary information about the facilities offered by various educational
institutions engaging in vocational training.
- Admission Requirements: Providing information for the learner about admission requirements,
the length of training, and the cost of attending any institution of
higher learning to which he my wish to go after graduation for high school
in order to continue his vocational preparation.
- Assistance during School Years: Giving assistance during school years
so that the individual will be able to adjust on the job work conditions
and to other workers.
- Assisting Pupil: Assisting each pupil to appreciate his
rightful place in a group of workers and to become a functional member of
the team.
- Altering the Pupil: Altering the pupil to the long-range training needed to
become e proficient is another objective of vocational guidance.
- Cautioning Each Learner: Cautioning each learner concerning facts and
pseudo-scientific shortcuts to vocational competency.
- Helping the Learner: Helping the learner realise that
success is purchased at the price of effort, and that satisfaction on the
job derives from doing his work competently. According to Early
Childhood Care and Education Vocational guidance
usually is interpreted as the assistance given learners to choose, prepare
for, and progress in an occupation.
NEED OF
VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE
1. If
an individual stay in wrong profession for
a long time, he suffers economically. There is financial loss.
2. If
an individual stay in a wrong profession,
he suffers from a psychic loss. The individual is not happy. He is frustrated.
His family life is affected.
3.
There are a large number of personal and social values of vocational guidance.
Leaving aside financial considerations, the worker’s happiness, his personal
development, his value as a social unit and contribution to human welfare are
all involved. Right vocational guidance helps us achieve that.
4.
Vocational guidance provides many economic advantages to the employers. Their
labour problems are less because these workers enjoy job satisfaction.
5. It
is needed from the point of view of health of the workers. If the profession is
such where health of workers breaks down, production suffers and morale of
workers goes down.
6.
Human potentialities are utilized to the maximum
with the help of vocational guidance. We are then truly benefited by it.
IMPORTANCE, SIGNIFICANCE AND SCOPE OF VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE:
1.
Looking forward to a better future: Young people need to be
better educated and trained for adult life. They must have a wide range of
opportunities in education and training. And they must have information and
guidance to allow them to make sound choices as they go through school and
beyond.
2.
Beginning at Home: The process starts in the home. Families and friends
have a crucial role to play in shaping people’s expectations and aspirations.
This should be properly recognized in school. Parents should be involved to the
fullest extent in what their children are doing and the choices they are
making.
3.
Continuation of Schools: Schools play a vital part in developing
expectations and capabilities from the earliest age. Good school encourage self-awareness,
the ability to work with others, and a sense of initiative and enterprise
qualities which are every bit as valuable in adult life as examination
certificates. A broad and balanced curriculum makes the most of each pupil’s potential
in every area- regardless of sex, ethnic origin or disability.
4.
Vocational Success: From the primary years onwards, much can be done to
give children insights into the world of work and a preparation for the
decisions ahead which will affect the future directions of their lives. Full
and reliable information and sensitive guidance must be available at the right
time for all if these decisions are to be properly informed.
5.
Choice of Subjects: When choice of options for further study first have
to made – around 13+ it is essential that the right decisions are taken in each
case – the crucial stage for which pupils must be fully prepared.
6.
Information for Choice: At 16+ and 17+, important choices have to be
made between staying on at school or going on to college, vocational training
or employment. These choices must be properly informed.
7.
Choice among Options: Those children on the point of leaving school or
college need a realistic appreciation of all the choices open to them. At
subsequent stages too, students must have access to relevant, reliable and
complete information and skilled guidance about options.
8.
Adverse effect on Health: Wrong choice of occupations adversely
affects the health of workers. A delicate eye-sight in injured by work which
greatly affects the eye-sight. Nervous system is shattered by making efforts to
maintain a speed of production beyond one’s capacity and so on. Therefore,
vocational guidance is very much needed.
9.
Utilization of Human Potentialities: The society loses much through its
failure to discover potential genius. A great deal of genius remains
undiscovered in every generation in absence of vocational guidance.
10.
Individual Differences: The fundamental reason why guidance is needed is
that there are differences among individual and differences among courses of
action open to them.
PERSONAL GUIDANCE
Personal guidance deals with the problems
of personal adjustment in different spheres of life. Mainly it works for the
individual’s adjustment to his social and emotional problems.
Definitions:
- Hopkins – “Personal guidance is that guidance which
is concerned with the problems of health, emotional adjustments and social
adjustment of an individual. It also includes his recreation and
leisure-time problems.”
- Ruth Strang – “Personal guidance
is the assistance given to an individual to solve his personal problems,
such as emotional and social adjustment, economic and social relationship
and problems connected with his physical as well as mental health.”
- Wilson – “The purpose of personal guidance is
to help the individual in his physical, emotional, social, moral and
spiritual developments and adjustment.”
Taking
all such aspects into consideration personal guidance may be found to cover all
the problems and aspects concerning the development and adjustment of a person.
- Crow and Crow opines that,
“Personal Guidance refers to help given an individual toward a better
adjustment in the development of attitudes and behaviour in all areas of
life.”
OBJECTIVES OF PERSONAL GUIDANCE
1. To assist the pupils to realize that it is natural to experience
periods of turmoil.
2. To assist him to enter into mental activity with renewed interest
and vigour as he attains maturity.
3. To help him to overcome the awkward years of physical development.
4. To encourage him to continue the health, safety and physical
education activities.
5. To help him to move gradually from dependence on others independence
of judgment and action.
6. To help him to work to the limit of his capacity with full knowledge
that he may not be as capable as other pupils.
7. To help him to develop a control over his emotions.
NEED OF PERSONAL GUIDANCE:
q
The need and importance of personal
guidance has been felt in the following grounds:
- It is needed to develop all personal and
social qualities that would enable the individuals in solving personal problems and seeking better
adjustments.
- It is meant to overcome the personal
problems of personality adjustment of every individual.
- It gives importance on
the personal and social needs of the pupils or individuals.
- It is linked with our
day-to-day life.
- It is an answer to our big question what
and what not we should be.
- It is meant for
deciding what habits, attitudes and values we should develop.
- It deals with all
problems of life which are not covered by educational and vocational
guidance.
- This guidance is the core of all types of
guidance.
- It concerns with the
total person.
- This guidance points
out the strengths and weaknesses of every individual or child.
NEED AND IMPORTANCE OF PERSONAL GUIDANCE
Personal guidance is needed in case of personal problems. It aims at social and
emotional well-being of the pupils.
There are certain personal problems that need guidance and require personal
guidance. They are,
- Problem
concerning with physical health
- Problem
concerning mental health
- Family
problems
4. School problems
5. Vocational problems
6. Marital problems
7. Sex problems
8. Personality problems
9. Religious problems
10. Economic problems
