Career guidance is not close, career division is difficult

Students of Hanoi Industrial Vocational College. Photo: NTCC.

The difficulties in the stream and career guidance for junior high school students have been pointed out many times. Then the Project "Career education and orientation for student stream in general education in the period of 2018 - 2025" determined the target that by 2025, at least 40% of junior high school graduates will continue to study at vocational training institutions at elementary and intermediate levels. Localities with particularly difficult socio -economic conditions will achieve at least 30%. However, it is very difficult to achieve career guidance goals in general and quantified goals in particular.

According to the Board of Directors of many schools, the biggest obstacle today is that most parents want their children to continue their studies in high school instead of going into vocational training. If they fail to pass the 10th grade, parents and students will consider othereducational programs.

In vocational schools, school leaders also shared that students and parents are not very interested in vocational training. After 9 years of studying, most students want to take the high school entrance exam, except for a few students with very low test scores, knowing for sure that they will not pass the exam, so they register for vocational training.

At the workshop to provide comments on the draft Decree of the Government regulating career guidance and streaming in education recently organized by the Ministry of Education and Training, once again the difficulties in career guidance and streaming were raised.

Mr. Pham Khuong Duy - Deputy Director of the Department of Education and Training of Vinh Phuc province suggested that the Drafting Committee should have clearer regulations on the cooperation mechanism between educational institutions and enterprises. If there are binding, clear and specific mechanisms, the career guidance and orientation in general schools will have a better impact on the awareness of students, parents, society and that is the two-way impact of supply and demand of human resources in localities.

Director of the Center for Continuing Education and Vocational Guidance of Ha Nam Province Dinh Thanh Khuong raised the issue: Currently, continuing education institutions are implementing two programs at the same time: cultural studies and vocational training. Therefore, if calculating the total number of study periods of a student in a school year, it is more than the number of study periods of students in high schools. On the other hand, students still have to ensure enough cultural knowledge to take the high school graduation exam. Therefore, there should be policies to balance the education program, reduce pressure on students. From there, change students' awareness in the process of streaming and career guidance at the end of junior high school.

In general career counseling programs; annual university admission counseling in particular, experts have given very clear advice: When entering high school, students should choose subjects based on the following factors: Career goals, personal (and family) strengths, future of the labor market, actual conditions of the school where they continue to study.

However, as analyzed, career guidance at secondary school level has long been done for show, as a formality, so after finishing secondary school, most students still want to continue to high school. But what career to study, what future orientation, many students are confused about. There are 10th grade students who have just registered for elective subjects and have changed their choice combination; not only changing once but wanting to change 2-3 times. Some students answered very innocently, what they study is up to their parents to decide...

Returning to the new general education program at the secondary level, there is currently a subject called Experiential activities, career guidance; Local education, aiming to have the best connection between teaching in schools and coordination with parents to orient students' careers. If this content is implemented correctly, surely secondary school students will have initial orientations for choosing their favorite major/career. Unfortunately, in many schools in Hanoi today, these lessons are often used by homeroom teachers to teach subjects to prepare for the 10th grade entrance exam.

For that reason, the issues discussed at the Workshop on providing comments on the draft Decree of the Government regulating career guidance and streaming in education (focusing on discussing and proposing orientation, streaming rate, career guidance; coordination in implementation; support policies; inspection and supervision work...), are essentially still discussing macro issues. First, it is necessary to start monitoring the implementation of teaching and learning in each school, to ensure that the goals are met as set.

Source: https://daidoanket.vn/huong-nghiep-chua-sat-phan-luong-gap-kho-10291370.html