Mega Counselling Session of Youth During World Youth Skill Day &IndiaSkills East Regional Competition 2018
Commemorating World Youth Skills Day on July 15th, the Ministry of Skill Development & Entrepreneurship organized IndiaSkill Regional Competitions – Eastern Chapter from 15th to 17th July 2018 at Siksha ‘O’ Anusandhan, Khandagiri Square, Bhubaneshwar, Odisha. This was planned to be a skill competition-cum-counselling event. Counselling sessions were planned to be on vocational training, skill development and career guidance.
The team at MSDE got in touch with CEMCA for the mega-counselling event and the following members comprised the CEMCA team that participated in the event:Ms. Sanjogita Mishra, Programme Officer – Skills, CEMCA; Ms. Meeta Sharma, Senior Counsellor, Consultant – CEMCA; Mr. Nitesh Gupta, Senior Counsellor, Consultant – CEMCA; Mr. Sachidananda Panda, Counsellor, ASD (CEMCA’s partner); Mr. Sangeeta Rani Sethy / Shakti Swarup Mohanty Counsellor, ASD (CEMCA’s partner).
The counselling session was planned in a set pattern where youth were first registered, and then sent for Group Counselling in groups of 200 or less. From here they were divided into batches of 40 or less and sent to 5 rooms for Psychometric Test. Here the youth were engaged in an activity based on the Career Guidance kit developed by CEMCA comprising of 200 job roles from 37 sector skill councils. They were then given a simplified John Holland’s RIASEC test which enabled them to introspect and understand their occupational personality. The youth were also urged to go and see the RIASEC boards listing some relevant professions from 37 Sector Skill Councils. Lastly, the youth were asked to go to the SSC Pavillion to see the competitions and/or exhibitions and interact with the SSCs.
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CEMCA was also involved in the orientation of the 60 counsellors that were mobilised from various NSDC partners and were briefed about the workflow of counselling by Ms. Sanjogita Mishra, Programme Officer, CEMCA. Then they were given an overview of John Holland’s Occupational Personality test – RIASEC. The 5 rooms for Psychometric test were managed by one person each from CEMCA team. Each team member of CEMCA was supported by 2 local counsellors.
The traffic of youth had increased and the time for counselling was reduced towards the afternoon on the second day due to heavy rains in the morning, July 16th, 2018; it was decided to brief youth directly in the group counselling session. That is when MsSanjogitaMishra counselled about 5 batches of youth in groups of 200 reaching about 1000 candidates. Overall,about 60 trainers were trained, along with over 4000 youth who were made aware about the significance of self-analysis to reach the most suitable career option. There was also an increase in awareness about NSDC, government supported Skill interventions like PMKVY running in PMKKs and increase in aspiration level of youth to participate in the economic progress of the country.
The efforts made by MSDE, NSDC, CEMCA and NSDC partners to help and guide youth were sincere and impactful to a level, though unfortunately, these results cannot be tracked.CEMCA proposes to take this career guidance kit to all the schools where NSDC partners are providing vocational courses as electives in classes 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th in government schools. This counselling is most effective when administered over six months and not as a short duration, one time experience.
CEMCA looks forward to partnering further with NSDC for the noble cause of building awareness and aspiration amongst the youth to pursue careers through VET.
