Managing Career Guidance in a Higher Educatuion Establishment

Ernst R. Safargaliev

, Guzel Kh. Zinurova

and Gulfiya R. Mardanova

Naberezhnye Chelny Institute, Kazan Federal University, Naberezhnye Chelny, Russia

UVO Universitet Upravleniya TISBI, Naberezhnye Chelny, Russia

Keywords: Career Guidance Management, Pupils’ Career Guidance, Career Choice, Class and Out-Of-Class Work,

Career Guidance Laboratory, Networking.

Abstract: This paper focuses on the problems of career guidance in modern schools. For Russian high school students,

the choice of their future occupation is closely connected to their choice of universal state exams. Choosing

what exam to take the student identifies the subject he is going to study at University, which means they must

have an idea about a certain profession. To evaluate effectiveness of career guidance, a survey was carried

out among school students in the city of Naberezhnye Chelny, Republic of Tatarstan, in April of 2019. The

paper contains the respondents’ answers to the questions about the pupils’ decision-making related to their

future profession, it considers the professions chosen by the pupils and it discloses the pupils’ self-

determination of future workplace. Currently, there are a lot of organizations that deal with career guidance

and are involved in networking cooperation. This approach means engaging in as many connections as

possible and inclusion of any number of places, the work being carried out on many uncoordinated projects.

Dozens of surveys are regularly conducted in Russia and their outcomes show that school leavers haven’t got

a good idea about their own possibilities, job requirements and labour market requirements. Given the current

situation, we present the model of career guidance University laboratory, which embraces all the participants

of the following chain: school – college – University – employer, etc.

1 INTRODUCTION

According to the Framework for Spiritual, Moral

Development and Personal Education of a Russian

Citizen, a person’s education, development of their

spiritual personality, the love for their country and the

desire to create and progress is the most important

condition of Russia’s successful growth. Education is

a goal-oriented process of development and

formation of social, cultural, spiritual and moral

values, instilling rules and standards of conduct for

effective personal fulfilment. The development of

criteria and indicators that measure the effectiveness

of educational process is important in educational

theory. Receiving feedback about the effectiveness of

educational efforts is of paramount importance for

their continuation. Such efforts are considered to be

the factors of achieving an educational goal. Within

the educational efforts of an educational organization

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lies occupational guidance for its students, who use it

to build their educational trajectory in relation to their

future occupation. Therefore, we suggest a model of

an occupational guidance laboratory in universities

and colleges, a model incorporating all the chain

links: school – college – University or College –

employer and others. We believe it can be an impetus

for the interested readers to do independent research.

It should be stressed here that managing occupational

guidance in an educational organization is one of the

priorities of its social and media development for the

purposes of implementing a federal educational

standard. Hence, the analytical review of

international and home research data produced by the

authors is of apparent theoretical and practical value.

Career guidance is associated with the opening of the

first career guidance room in France in 1903. After a

few years, in Boston, a bureau was opened with the

intention of assissting teenagers in their career choice.

572

Safargaliev, E., Zinurova, G. and Mardanova, G.

Managing Career Guidance in a Higher Educatuion Establishment.

DOI: 10.5220/0010594105720577

In Proceedings of the International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure (ISSDRI 2021), pages 572-577

ISBN: 978-989-758-519-7

The main reason why career guidance had emerged

was the fact that a lot of people in those countries at

that particular time were faced with the problem of

choice, something they never had before.

In Russia, career guidance foundations started in

as early as pre-revolutionary period. In 1871, K.K.

Weber published his book “Stories about factories

and mills”, which gave the young people an idea

about the existing professions (History of Career

Guidance in Russia in Infographics). In 1922, in

RSFSR, a career choice bureau was established for

teenagers. Initially, career guidance was viewed as

optimal employment of human resources and their

assignment to various activities for the benefit of

production.

These days, career guidance is understood as

helping to choose the direction in education and

training in career management. Working with pupils

on their career guidance helps to advance strong

social goals in the society related to job search,

employment, proving your abilities to the employer,

etc. Consequently, for the pupils to self-determine in

their lives and careers it is necessary to support the

assertion of their personality and their values (Tracy

Brian, 1995, 2008). A self-identified person can

become aware of their abilities and aptitudes for a

certain job, which is a pre-requisite to their career

implementation.

For Russian high school students, their career

choice is closely related to their choice of Universal

state exam. Choosing what exam to take, the student

identifies the subject they are going to study at

University, which means they must have an idea

about a certain profession.

Healthy mental and personal development as the

key element of career guidance is addressed in the

wrirings of L.I.Antsiferova, V.A.Bodrov,

L.N.Kulikova, E.N.Shiyanov. The writings of

M.R.Ginsburg, G.A.Kovalev. M.Yu.Savchenko,

A.G.Spirkin, E.A.Yablokova consider career

guidance pre-requisites in terms of personal abilities

and aptitudes. Russian and foreign scientists, such as

A.A.Bodaleva, I.S.Kon, A.Maslow, R.S.Nemova,

G.Olport, K.Rogers, etc. study the development of

professional self-determination. The analysis of

scientific writings allows for the conclusion that a

varied range of issues remains understudied.

Underinvestigated are the aspects that enable to

clearly define the efficiency and effectiveness of the

pupils’ career guidance.

Thus, many high school students, who face the

challenge of career choice, have a vague idea about

modern professions and the system of career

education. A lot of pupils don’t know how to evaluate

themselves and their capabilities and how to match

them up with professions.

Therefore, it can be said that there exists a

discrepancy between the work done at schools in

relation to career guidance and scientific system of

career guidance activities ensuring its quality as well

as dynamic development of modern labour market. It

is noted that if career guidance is carried out at some

place, it is predominantely traditional and has the

form of isolated and random activities, which are

often reduced to distributing informational leaflets to

future school leavers and testing the pupils for their

career aptitudes (Mukhametzyanova, 2016).

2 METHODS

Survey is the method that was used to measure the

effectiveness of career guidance work at school. In

April 2019, the survey was carried out among the

pupils of Naberezhnye Chelny, Republic of Tatarstan.

The questionnaire included 20 questions.

Despite many negative opinions about the

questionnaire method, we consider that today it can

be regarded as one of the main methods to study self-

determination of pupils and individuals upon their

entry into employment or education; it is used in

researches of any aspects of social relations.

3 RESULTS

As part of study, 1,236 pupils were interviewed in

Naberezhnye Chelny, Republic of Tatarstan. All 12

general education institutions of the city took part in

the survey. The gender ratio among the respondents

turned out to be almost equal: 46% - boys, 54% - girls.

The age of the respondents: from 14 to 17 years old.

The pupils’ decisions about their future profession

are shown in Figure 1.

Managing Career Guidance in a Higher Educatuion Establishment

573

Figure 1: The pupils’ decisions about their future profession, %.

At the time of survey, most pupils (41%) had only

decided about their specialty or direction of

education, but not about any concrete profession. The

third of the respondents were deciding between a few

professions (29.5%). And only every fifth pupil had

made their choice and decided about their future

profession. Notice that at the time of the survey

13.1% of the pupils didn’t know the answer to the

question: “Have you decided about your future

profession?”.

Further we shall consider the professions chosen

by the pupils of Naberezhnye Chelny, Republic of

Tatarstan (Figure 2).

Figure 2: Professions chosen by the pupils, %.

Engineer (19.5%) is in the first place. The pupils

don’t specify what kind of engineers they want to be:

design engineer, process engineer, biological

engineer, military engineer. Designer (13%) is in the

second place, no specifics again. Doctor, nurse, health

professional (7.8%) are in the third place. More

detailed information is given in Figure 2. It should be

noted here that the pupils could mention a few

professions at the same time, in which case the span

of expertise required for this or that area is very high,

i.e. the pupil is simultaneously making a choice

ISSDRI 2021 - International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure

574

between doctor and programmer, athlete and

mechanic.

We shall provide you with a few highly

controversial answers: engineer and doctor, builder

and translator; biologist and manager, athlete, etc.

Very few of the respondents choose between

allied professions. Their choice is likely to be

determined by extracurricular activities. However,

there are times when a pupil says that he has chosen

a profession, but at the same time he mentions a place

of work or specialty at a University, i.e. such

respondents choose the following professions:

company, factory, KAMAZ, computer applications,

Ministry of Internal Affairs. It is, therefore, very

important for the pupil to have a go in many areas:

different afterschool clubs, sports clubs, centres for

technical creativity, etc. (Safargaliev, 2016). Only in

this case can they know all the advantages and

disadvantages of each profession they try.

The question “How well do you know where

you’ll be able to work upon graduation?” was

answered in the following way. Most respondents

said that they vaguely knew (54.2%). 16.9% of the

respondents knew almost nothing. And only every

sixth pupil (15.3%) said that they knew very well

where they could work in future. More detailed

information is given in Figure 3.

Figure 3: Pupils’ self-determination of future workplace, %.

4 DISCUSSION

Career guidance in a modern school is a system of

identifying the pupil’s capabilities and aptitudes for

certain professions, preparing them for work and

helping them with their decisions about their future

career. It is directly implemented during the teaching

and educational process and during extracurricular

activities (Safargaliev and Nikolaeva, 2017;

Safargaliev et al., 2015).

As our President, V.V.Putin, said: “The choice of

profession defines future”. The new-generation

Federal State Standard of Basic General Education

says the same defining the importance of career

guidance.

Federal State Educational Standard defines “the

portrait of the basic school leaver” as a person, who

“finds their way around in the world of professions,

understands the significance of work and career for

the benefit of the steady development of society and

nature” (Decree of the Ministry of Science and

Education of the Russian Federation dated December

the 17th N 1897, 2010).

According to the research carried out among

children of different ages and their parents, the

parents are most worried when their child is moving

into adulthood, between the age of 10 and 14. It stems

from the fact that children become more interested in

professions at this age. Adults become anxious

because they lack informaion about the professions

that will be in demand within 10 to 15 years and

because their child lacks any obvious capabilities.

Every fifth parent admits that they can’t help their

child with the choice of profession as they don’t have

sufficient information about the present and future job

market. The most paradoxic thing is that 60% of the

parents of teenagers over 14 years old consider it

necessary for the children to early familiarize

themselves with work and, probably, with their future

profession – before they are 10 years old (How to

Survive Universal State Exam and Choose a Career.

Recruitment Officers’ Advice).

The right choice of career brings enormous

psychic income to a person because they get more

opportunities for personal fulfilment. Indeed, one can

only make great achievements in a job they love.

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575

Besides, doing something you were born for one can

be of great benefit to people. However, it is

impossible to make this choice, if the pupil hasn’t got

the slightest idea about what people of this or that

profession do.

What happens in reality. 30 to 35% of University

year 2 or 3 students realize that they have made the

wrong choice and that they study at the wrong place.

“A third of University students is dead weight! And

that is only the ones, who openly admit that they’ve

made the wrong career choice…” – these are the data

of Frans Sheregi, the director of the Centre for Social

Forecasting, professor of the National Research

Nuclear University MePhi (Konyukhova, 2014).

Notice that a third of students drops out of University,

another third completely changes their profession.

The number is even higher for humanitarians - half

of them.

The choice of profession is a serious decision,

which should be made considering the objective

information about the conditions of enrollment and

study and the prospects of future employment. The

wrong decision made by a pupil leaves them, as a

result, with a specialty they don’t like and,

consequently, with a diploma of no use (Lyubova et

al., 2015). Further education courses and retraining

are there for the newly qualified. Within five years

after graduation 60% of the newly qualified retrain or

go into further education (Konyukhova, 2014).

Currently, there are many career guidance

organizations, which involve networking (Figure 4).

Figure 4: Model of career guidance in educational

organizations.

Such an approach provides for networking that

involves the maximum number of connections and

includes any number of places, the work being carried

out on many uncoordinated projects. Such an

approach provides for networking that involves the

maximum number of connections and includes any

number of places, the work being carried out on many

uncoordinated projects.

In such a case, it is Universities that employ the

staff qualified to work in the new information and

education space based on digital educational

resources and distance educational technologies.

Consequently, when it comes to choosing a career, a

higher education institution must undertake the

coordinating role by opening a career guidance

laboratory. With the help of a career guidance

laboratory a University develops a model, a roadmap

of a person’s development. The roadmap is developed

for a pupil, specified for a student and is corrected for

a working specialist; it is adjusted when the employee

faces a burn-out crisis, growth (career staircase),

change of employment.

This model of networking is presented in Figure

Figure 5: Management Model of Career Guidance

Laboratory at University.

Career guidance laboratory organizes networking

among all the chain links: school – college –

University – employer, etc. Depending on the job

market demand, University develops further

education programs for certain groups of people,

enabling it to form its non-publicly funded scheme,

which means additional income for the University.

5 CONCLUSIONS

Dozens of surveys are regularly conducted in Russia

and their outcomes show that school leavers haven’t

got a good idea about their own possibilities, job

requirements and labour market requirements. Given

the current situation, we present the model of a career

guidance laboratory, which embraces all the

participants of the chain: school – college –

University – employer, etc.

1. University must undertake the coordinating role

through opening a career guidance laboratory for the

following people:

 pupils, who take a career guidance test and

choose a universal state exam as per their

preferences; the ones that choose their final

exams in specialties suitable for the University

become their potential clients;

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576

 students, who have the opportunity to select the

company they are interested in through career

guidance laboratories while they are at

University;

 working specialists, who take tests at

University; later on, the University helps such

employees in their burn-out crisis, growth

(career staircase), change of employment.

2. University develops further education

programs for a certain group of people, expanding its

non-publicly funded scheme, having additional

income.

3. University works out a model, a roadmap of a

person’s development through career guidance

laboratory.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The work is performed according to the Russian

Government Program of Competitive Growth of

Kazan Federal University.

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