VOCATIONAL COUNSELLING AND CAREER DEVELOPMENT: THE ROLE OF THE COUNSELLOR

Abstract

Vocational counseling is an important aspect of counselling that cannot be neglected. Developing nations like Nigeria need to provide this counselling service to her teaming youth to make them useful to themselves and the society. This study stresses the importance of vocational guidance for career development and the role of the counsellor. The study relied on secondary sources and is descriptive in nature. It was found in the study that, the importance of vocational counseling and career development is very crucial in developing countries like Nigeria where unemployment is on the increase. This is because, vocational counseling enable children and youth to choose and develop careers that are not only sellable but can also make them to be self-employed. Vocational guidance comprises the provision of advice and information about the choice of a career, specifics on individual careers and career requirements, ways of funding vocational education and training, important trends in the world of work, information on the situation and development of the labour market, and advice on how to find employment or a training place. The vocational guidance counsellor work together with interested adolescents and young adults to ascertain goals and objectives, and identify vocational opportunities and alternatives. The study recommends among other things that: the services of vocational counseling be made available for students at all levels of learning to enable obtain the help they need in choosing and developing their careers in Nigeria.  Guidance and counseling services must reflect the psychology of vocational counseling to make counseling result oriented. Children at elementary levels be guided on their choices of vocations and careers to enable them grow up to be useful to themselves and the society. And government in Nigeria can use vocational counseling as a way of fighting unemployment and making the teaming youth to be self-reliant and job worthy.