EVEN AS the new academic year has started in a full-fledged offline mode, the Maharashtra State Council for Educational Research and Training (SCERT) has decided to continue its career guidance online, on its YouTube channel. The practice, which started during pandemic-induced lockdown, has proved to be more beneficial with larger reach.
“We started this career webinar concept amid pandemic. As soon as the videos were uploaded on YouTube, there were multiple views. Now that the schools have started, they have liberty to arrange viewing of the recorded videos, as and when possible,” said Deepak Mali, Assistant Director, SCERT, from the Vocational Guidance and Psychological Guidance department.
This department at SCERT has been training and appointing teachers from government schools for career guidance of students and also to help them deal with exam pressure, if any. “The initiatives under this have been restricted to areas where the appointed counsellors have taken proactive steps. Whereas children from schools in villages did not have the same exposure. Counsellors too had limitations due to distances. Now the videos prepared by senior counsellor teachers appointed by SCERT are available in public domain for all to see,” said a teacher from Palghar ZP school, requesting anonymity.
Already, 37 career guidance videos have been uploaded by the SCERT and lakhs of students are able to take advantage.
“The videos are not restricted to different areas of career prospects; but also navigating students and parents on how to make career choices, how to gauge where one’s interest and abilities are among all,” said Mali, adding how such sessions earlier were held in-person in schools; but there were several limitations in reaching to larger audience.
“For students from classes IX to XII, deciding on their career path becomes very important as they are on the verge of taking admission to higher education courses. In today’s time, when there are ample opportunities available, it is important that students make an informed choice,” said Vikas Garad, Deputy Director of the SCERT, adding that the SCERT decided to continue the career guidance webinars, post pandemic, to ensure larger reach.
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