Government College Osian provides comprehensive career guidance, covering all aspects of career planning, job opportunities, and choices in undergraduate and postgraduate studies for students. This aims to assist students in selecting the most suitable career path based on their interests and capabilities. The college is dedicated to fostering a culture that enhances both individual and institutional development, ensuring that graduating students possess the right attitude, skills, and temperament to meet the community's needs.

The Context that required the initiation of the practice

The newly enrolled students admitted to college education come from various schools, each with different levels of school experiences. These experiences vary, including those from vernacular, urban, and rural school backgrounds, among others. Additionally, there's a universal aspect of varying socio-economic backgrounds and gender factors. Therefore, in the current trend, it's essential to provide guidance and counseling for college-bound students to help them identify their strengths and weaknesses and, simultaneously, to nurture their strengths and areas of interest, enabling them to excel in the future.

Hence, it is a highly challenging task to develop and guide students before they graduate. Therefore, continuous career guidance and counselling within the college are expected to enrich students' knowledge and help them make well-informed decisions about their careers and future prospects. The primary challenges that need to be addressed in designing and implementing this practice include:

1. Integrating career guidance and counselling activities into the academic calendar, which adds additional pressure to align with the academic schedule.
2. Emphasizing the importance of attending career guidance and counselling programs to ensure that students regularly participate in these activities.
3. Providing teachers with awareness about various career options for students in general and specifics as well.
4. Organizing alumni gatherings to deliver practical insights into career planning, along with additional activities to inspire current students.
5. Identifying suitable resource persons for offering career counselling, which demands a significant amount of time and effort alongside regular curriculum duties.
6. Conducting awareness programs within the college about diversity, challenges, and the importance of career guidance activities.

The career guidance offered at college training programs includes the following:

1. Life skills training program are conducted to bring a better personal understanding, so that they are more successful in personal and professional life.

2. Seminar, workshops and training on “Tourism - Scope and its application” was conducted in the college for the benefits of students and youths of the district.

3. Career Guidance activities are not just a routine programme but a highly focused activity. It has desirable feature of continuous improvement, based on regular feedback from the stakeholders such as students and alumni.

 4. Teacher In-charge of the Career Guidance and Counseling Cell of the College was supported to attend Seminars, Workshops and Training on Entrepreneurship Development Programme (EDP) conducted by District Administration, affiliating university, other government and non-government agencies.

5. Career guidance and counseling is very dynamic in imparting entrepreneurial awareness, skills and knowledge to the students. Invites professionals and experts from outside the College to conduct and deliver Career Guidance and Counseling training programmes for college students were organized.

6. Organized awareness programmes on various Online Examination, competitive examinations, etc at state and national level were organized to deliver training for college students.

7. Various sessions are conducted to evaluate the students on the basis of their professional as well as interpersonal skills

Objectives of the practice:

Career Guidance and Counselling Cell objective is to guide and direct students to set their career, goals and stimulate them to exercise their consistent endeavours to accomplish their career objectives. Keeping in view the competence, interests and acquired knowledge of the students, it channels the young trainees to fetch lucrative specialize career. To explore new knowledge and train students to inculcate recent company attitude amongst them as per the requirement of the global competitive world. Counsellors will be able to provide guidance and counselling to the students for encounters all problems related to career and update them related to current trends and developments, available streams. By guidance and counselling, students will be able to know about themselves and easily encounter the problems that they face in day to day life. The practices of continuous career guidance and counselling serves to improve and achieve the following objectives are:-

1. To broadly explore various career options to helps the students to think of various forms of careers that can be taken up by them after completing the graduation.

2. To enable students to select appropriate higher education program after completing the undergraduate program.

3. To identify and facilitate the students (with a desire to explore entrepreneurship) in making them aware of the necessary resources (Process, Technology and Enterprises) needed to explore entrepreneurship as a career path.

4. To impart oral and written communication skills and knowledge essential to successfully navigate the placement process.

5. To provide a platform for gaining knowledge on various aspects relating to civil services examinations along with Interaction with some already successful candidates.

The practice

1. The college's career guidance programs encompass the following activities:
2. Life skills training programs are conducted to enhance personal understanding, fostering success in both personal and professional life.
3. The college organizes seminars, workshops, and training sessions on "Tourism - Scope and Its Application" for the benefit of students and young individuals in the district.
4. Career guidance activities go beyond routine programs; they are highly focused and continuously improved based on regular feedback from stakeholders, including students and alumni.
5. The Teacher In-Charge of the College's Career Guidance and Counseling Cell receives support to attend seminars, workshops, and training related to Entrepreneurship Development Programs (EDP) conducted by District Administration, affiliated universities, and other government and non-government agencies.
6. Career guidance and counselling play a dynamic role in imparting entrepreneurial awareness, skills, and knowledge to students. Professionals and experts from outside the college are invited to conduct training programs.
7. Awareness programs are organized to inform students about various online examinations and competitive tests at the state and national levels, providing training for college students.
8. Various sessions are conducted to evaluate students based on their professional and interpersonal skills.

Obstacles faced if any and strategies adopted to overcome them:

 The common obstacles faced by the college in conducting career guidance are counseling classes are: -

1. Sometimes frustrating of teachers to do their work because the job requires exceptional communication skills to be able to communicate with the students.

2. Concerns of teachers about students’ reactions to an unfamiliar teaching method in career guidance and counselling class. This impact on student course and evaluations.

3. Some students are unsure of what they want to do with their lives after graduating and hesitate to attend career guidance class.

4. Apart from academic practice, teachers concern that career guidance and counselling classes are time consuming which involved learning about new thing. Norms about teaching methods and other expectations.

 5. Class size and classrooms facilities.

 6. Course scheduling issues.

7. The students in the college are rural in nature; lack of career-related guidance, limited/no information and knowledge about career opportunities at school level;

8. Limited parental support from parents e.g. job leads, specific ideas about where to receive training, and advice about vocational options, especially if the parents were not college education.

9. Unavailability of jobs locally implied rural students possibly consider “career” as an urban phenomenon.

To overcome these obstacles the college put in place the following remedies:-

1. Effective use of ICT classrooms as the solution.

 2. It is important to address and guide the rural students the role of rural occupations, innovative practices in rural occupations, strategies regarding community-based management of resources, and modern skills in managing traditional occupations.

3. It is imperative to address rural student’s challenges such as the fear of failure, low selfconfidence, difficulties in communicating with new people, and not having a definite goal as their career-related challenges.

4. Self-development impacts career development and it is essential to build career readiness of rural students through self-exploration and self-development.

5. Thus, Career-related Challenges of rural students have greater opportunities to participate in developmental programmes like youth camps which aim to build their self-confidence and aspirations.

6. A counsellor will give details and information about their individual skills and academic performances.

7. Hire experts from outside the college to deliver trainings, etc.

Impact of the practice

1. The number of students attending the career guidance and counselling classes has increased over the years.

2. The retention rate of graduates in their employed organizations is better compare than before setting up Career Guidance and Counselling Cell in College.

3. Alumni feedback indicates that the students who have undergone life skills training programs are really helpful in balancing their work and life.

4. Star-up activities are initiated by the college where the students are facilitated in putting ideas into practice.

5. The students have progressively gained confidence in managing the placement interviews better. 6. The success rate of students in getting placed has improved continuously over the years.

7. A few of the students have become successful in selecting and getting through District Selection Committee examinations.

 8. The teachers of the college also took keen interest in guidance the students.

9. Some students have become successful entrepreneurs also.

Resources required

Significant preparatory work was necessary before, during, and after the coordination of career guidance activities. This encompassed the identification of suitable topics, essential features, and necessary skills to be imparted. Subsequently, the selection of appropriate resource individuals capable of conducting these activities, along with securing the required technical, financial, and physical resources, was a crucial step. Qualitative assessment of feedback from these initiatives was imperative to determine whether they should be expanded, modified, or discontinued in the future. This process necessitated dedicated space and time across various departments, additional equipment, faculty involvement from relevant specializations, extra funding, and logistical support, all of which the college successfully provided.The establishment of industry connections was vital for tailoring and delivering customized training programs. Engaging experts from the industry who possessed extensive networks within other organizations played a critical role in enhancing students' placement prospects. This marks a promising start for the college's future endeavours.