Parents and family relationships have been considered influencing on children’s schooling and career development. In this post Raza Abbas explore current thinking and development in Pakistan.

In Pakistan, career thinking is influenced by parents. It is important to broaden the aspirations of students and to give parents the confidence and the tools they need to support their children’s career exploration. A good starting point is having a career dialogue with the parents of students in grades 8-12 (ages 13-18) at public and private educational institutions.

The youth in Pakistan currently constitute 60% of the population and these meaningful dialogues are contributing towards social change and careers advocacy. This innovative career practice is aimed at educating parents about diverse career fields commonly known in the country and also enlightening them about emerging career fields which will have bright future career prospects based on research.

The parents complete a 15-20-minute evidence-based career selection questionnaire, which is designed to help them realise the limitations of their children’s career aspirations and the extent of resources available to them. This prompts a mutually engaging dialogue for about 60 minutes about what makes for a good job/livelihood and how to find useful information about jobs, careers, education and training pathways.

Both parents and children are encouraged to become more proactive and investigative about future plans, including consideration of newly emerging industries. After the dialogue session, parental career guidance sessions are scheduled with the career practitioner in consultation with parents and their child to develop futuristic career development plans.

One important activity is a careers and vocational fair where they can meet with people working in jobs of interest, employers and representatives of post-secondary education and training and vocational institutions. Parents come into this process with partial career information and with many assumptions.

An enlightened counsellor and practitioner will empower them by helping them to understand how sustainable careers are crafted. Afterwards, many students are pursuing a career that they didn’t even know existed at the start of the process which contributes to their economic livelihood and prosperity which is need of current times.