Career guidance and counseling for university students in china

Career guidance and counseling for university students in china

Vincy jing sun ‘ mantak yuen

The autor(s)  2012. This article is publshed with open access at springrlink.com

Abstrak in recent years, various form of career guidance an career counseling have become more prominent and better serviced in most universities trought the world. Such serviceare obviously to the benefit student themselves  and for society. After and intially slow start, researches and practitioners in china have now begun to focus on the lozalition of guidance and counseling theory and strategies in order to much more exactly and  actual employment situation defferentregius of the country. This sould result in a service that meet students’ need more effectively. Usingg minely core literatur examining the context career guidance and counseling in chine from 2001 to  the present, this paper elaborates in the current situation  and summarizes in progress that has been made. The authors detail the complen, implamantation, problem thata exist, and way ofimproving projects of this kind in chinese universities. Cunclisions and suggestions for further reseach on career guidance and counseling are provided.

Keyword career guidance – career  counseling – university students – china

Introduction

Theories of guidance and counseling thats exist in  chia were mainly adopted from europe and the united states, particularly in the period since 1990. However, on institution china, Tsinghua university actually work in  this fiel as early as 1916, and estabilished a  vocational  guidance  committe in 1923. This intiative can probably be regardeed as the beginning of career guidance in china (Liu 2006). More recently the country has beeb developing ravidly and there has been significant increase in the need for career guidance. At a national level,  new policies have been issued and implamented and there has been expansion in the provision of trainingcourses on careers matters for teachers. An increase in the publishing in teaching materials for career guidance curricula is also evident (Ma 2009).

Over the years, many career gudance conten has been set up in univerisities, accumulating same useful experinces and implamantation of career guidance and counseling ( Li 2002 ; Ma 2009). The following section summarise same of the significant achievemnts and the satte of current research on career guidance in china.

In reviewing chinese, literature, the therms zhiye guihua (career planning) or jiuye zhidao (imployment guidance) are used when reffering to career giudance, career education, and vocational career. Wang (2008) devined the diference between these to term in thechinese educational context, whit jiuye zhidao (employing guidance) being concerned whit issues related to finding jobs for prospective graduets.issues addressed in this domain tyfically include: familiarizaton with employment policy, providing employment information, coacing and resume preparation, and developing interview skills. Zhiye guihua (career planning), on the other hand, means guidance given to students according to their personal circumsatances to assist them in planning for lifelong career development. Here tifically, students are made aware of the options available to  them in the world of work and they are led to  realize the many important  decisions that have to be made. Relevant topics are presented trough the career gguidance curriculum  and via career counseling. Career assesment is also included.

In the situation existing at present in most chinese universities., employment guidance still dominates over career planning (Wu 2008). Efective career planning is implamented in only a few universities, but currently others colllege and universities beginning to make significant efforst to extend their employment guidance and counseling more in the direction of career planning (Bian 2008). In the complex and evolving situation existing in china, it is isufficient to address all aspects of career development by using onnly employment guidance strategies or by dealing only with career planning – both element are required. For convenience, in this paper the term ‘career guiance’ will be used to embrace both ‘job hunting skills’ and longer-term career planning.

 

Recent and current employment situation

As a result of national policy (state council of china 1999), chinese univerrsities began to expand their enrolments in 1999, and this has ultimately created many problems in the current job market. The average rate of increase of new graduates in every years has been 30% since 2002, so graduating student have faced more and more severe employment difficulties (Geng 2007). In 2008 the total number of national university graduatest reached  5.595  million; but according to officials statistics the intial employment rate of graduates is only 70%, so there wold be at leat 1.7 million university graduates faced with a problam in graining employment (Gao 2009). Indeed, difficulty getting a jobs has emergad as  and ongoing focus of personal concern and anxciaty, leading an increased  need for career counseling services (Wu 2008).

Acording to Gao (2009) and Wu (2008), the problrm of employment for graduates is exacerbated by many faktors, an important one of wich is that they have limited long-term career planning and personal goal-setting startegis. They also lack awareness of the knowledge and competencies required in specific jobs. When faced later with employment demands they generally exhibit such psicological problems as confusions, anxiety and panic.

Significance of career guidance

Wen (2009) interpreted the significance of career guidance in universitycontext from two perspectives, (i) the needs of studentsm and (ii) development of the university. For students career planningcan help them set personal goals and decided upon current and future directions. Such career guidance  is helpful to them in overcoming any misunderstandinga in choosing careers, in selecting ttheir study paths, and in identifying their potential strengths to enhance their convechtitiveness for positions. Effective career guidance provides guidelines with a long-therm for career planning, from wich students can benefit by realizing their true potential in life (Guo 2009).

For university, career guidance can help promote necessary reforms in teaching and can inpromve employment rates for their graduates, thus enchancing the reputation of a university. Solving the problem of employment is not only related to university student and their families but also to the universities’ repulatations, and even to the country’s politics, contructions of the economy, and maintaiining  society (Li and  Ye 2001).

Current situation and resultsof research

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Despite is very early start in Tsinghua university, career guidance and counseling withiin most universities in china is still at a fairly  elementary satage. This is reflected in the fact that Chinese papers and articles or career guidance have been mostly written after 2004. Keywoord searched in the Chinese journal data-base in relation to this study were ‘career guidance,’ ‘employment guidance’ and ‘career palannig.’ It was found that there were ‘faw journals using ‘career guidance’ in titles on descriptors between 1979 dan 2001. Within thw decade from 2001 to 2011, approximately 250 papers about career guidance for univerrsity student’ were published in chinese cord journals. Of these, nearly 200 were written after 2005. It is almost impossible to fine any paper on this issue in China written before 2001. This suggests that research on career guidance in China started late, but then developed very rapidly. In the material that does exist, the content is almost entirely about ‘employment guidance’ in universities, whit just a few writers addressing career gguidance in high schools (e.g., Liu and Tian 2008).

Fang and Tan (2010) claimed that papers on career counseling for university students in China are event fawer in number and generally lack  practical strategies or data from  empirical  studies. Articles tand to be confined to investigations of students’ demand for career coounseling (e.g., Zhao and shein 2008) analysis of existing conditions in career guidance (e.g., Yu 2002), and describing the duties of career counselors (e.g., Fang and Than 2010).

In the areas of buth guidance and counseling, the content of many published papers mainly describes possible provisions, often based on models from other countries (e.g., Li 2002), identifies potential problems (e.g., Lian  and Wang 2010). And suggest possible career planning and selecting approppiate courses, or examples of empirical research on career guidance  or counseling strategies. This situation suggests that the theoretical basis for career guidance in China need to be strenghthened  (Liu and Li 2007). On the other hand, there is evidence in some reports that career guidance and counseling endeavourse in some Chinese universities appear to have achieved verry good results  (e.g., Yu 2002) and these examples could povide a reference model for other universities for China to emulate (Wan and Wang 2006).

In addition to presenting foreigen career theories, a number of papers focus on the current situatiion regarding career guidance in Chinese universities in different regions of China (e.g., Fang 2007; Zhou 2008). These studies tend to highlight a need to develope and indigenous career theory (or theories) to uit the actual situations existing in those regions.

Implementation  of career guidance

In therms of the methods of career guidance currently in operation, over 90% of 16 universities investigated in Beijing have opent ‘employment guidance courses’ for introducing job-hunting skills and employment policy (Liu 2006). Others methods of delivering career guidance content to student include ad hocs lectures, campus recruitment fairs, and individual counseling as required. Only 25% of universities in Beijingprovided career and assesment (Hong 2007). At the present time, career guidance universities mostly delivererd via ‘career centers.’ And through departemental career tutors (Long and Song 2007). However, many practitioners consider this traditional model usually fails to  satisfy the many need that students have for career guidance and career counseling.

To change the traditional mode of vocational guidance soke writers (e.g., Long and Song 2007; Sun 2009).