There are generally 3 types of guidance and counseling in schools— educational, vocational, and personal-social. In this post, we will be zooming into vocational guidance and counseling — its scope, objectives, and techniques.
Vocational guidance is the assistance given to students in choosing and preparing for a suitable vocation. It is concerned primarily with helping individuals make decisions and choices involved in planning the future and career decisions and choices necessary in effecting satisfactory vocational adjustment.
There are so many vocations as there are so many individuals, and certainly, all individuals are not suitable for all the vocations. Every vocation needs a certain background, preparation, and aptitude and only those having them can succeed in it.
The goal of the vocational guidance counselor is to find out what positions and jobs are available and what their requirements are and to find out whether the person in question satisfies those conditions.
Vocational guidance is most needed at the secondary school stage because, at the end of this stage, students are expected to settle in a desired field through the tertiary education system.
According to the National Vocational Guidance Association (1924), “vocational guidance is the giving of information, experience, and advice in regard to choosing an occupation, preparing for it, entering upon it and progressing in it.”
The National Vocational Guidance Association approved and adopted a slightly modified definition in 1937. According to this definition, “vocational guidance is the process of assisting the individual to choose an occupation, prepare for it, enter upon and progress in it.’
Important Note: The National Vocational Guidance Association (NVGA) was founded in 1913. In 1985 NVGA was renamed and became the National Career Development Association (NCDA). Thus NCDA is the first, longest-running, and most prominent career development association in the world.
According to Donald E. Super (1949), vocational 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 him and benefit to society.”
According to the Conference of International Labour Organisation (1954), vocational guidance is “an assistance given to an individual in solving the problems related to occupational choice and progress with due regard for the individual’s characteristics and their relation to occupational opportunity.’
According to Crow and Crow, “Vocational Guidance usually is interpreted as the assistance given to the learners to choose, prepare for and progress in an occupation.”
According to Myers, “Vocational Guidance is the process of assisting the individual to do for himself certain definite things pertaining to his vocation.”