(Pointer: if education preaches open-mindedness what then is the importance of guidance counseling?)

www.yourstory.com defined guidance and counseling as I quote “Guidance and counseling is the process which helps the students to know their skills, interests, personality that will help students in further career selection”. Now education teaches open-mindedness. www.verywellmind.com defined open-mindedness as “a characteristic that involves being receptive to a wide variety of ideas, arguments, and information. Being open–minded is generally considered a positive quality”.

In other words, education teaches that you are free to make choices and work hard towards achieving them it in terms of careers, skills, and interest, so why then do we still require career counselors.

A typical example: Akin attends Endwell Model Science College. He is a brilliant student and graduated top of his class in the Primary category but, since his advent in the secondary section, he performs woefully and this is worrisome for his parents. They strip him of all gadgets just to ensure his performance improves, but nothing changes. What then can make an exceptional student be a woeful performer just in a wink of time?

Guidance and counseling are required at this point, though education teaches open-mindedness, an opportunity to explore a wide range of ideas, it does not always guaranty that we will always make the right choice. Mostly because of these wide options we are often confused about what is best for us and our children. We tend to roll with the popular opinions and feel they will always yield desirable results. 

The major problem facing the Nigerian educational system is the mass failure in external examinations because there are no counselors to educate the pupil and student on the overwhelming mass ignorance on the choice of their careers and educational growth. It is therefore very important to leverage the diverse technologies available to us to ensure that young people are properly informed.

This could be done across social media spaces, telephones and emails, and mass advocacy. People should not only find out that they make the wrong career when they are older. The gaps can be covered when they are younger.

Seldomly, people make insane career choices and excelled in it after working so hard to attain the skills necessary, but should choosing a career to be a struggle with your weakness rather than advancing your strengths? Let us know what you think in the comment section.