Negotiating 21st century challenges in career counselling at South African institutions of higher education : can this be done and, if so, how?

Abstract

Career counselling as a profession has in recent years seen numerous changes globally. Changes in people’s lifestyles caused by technological advances and the information explosion have brought fresh challenges to career counselling. New careers requiring new skills and attitudes are constantly emerging, and career counselling has to keep abreast of these developments if it is to remain relevant to postmodern society (Savickas 1995; 2006; 2007; Watson 2004). Locally, calls have been made for changes in the profession. The National Plan for Higher Education (NPHE) (Department of Education 2001, 4) contains an agenda for the role of education in the reconstruction and development programme. The NPHE stresses the importance of ‘human resource development: the mobilisation of human talent and potential through lifelong learning’ (Department of Education 2001, 3). It highlights the ‘chronic mismatch between the output of Higher Education and the needs of a modernising economy’, emphasising the ‘shortage of highly trained graduates in fields such as science, engineering, technology and commerce [which] has been detrimental to social and economic development’ (Department of Education 2001, 3), and it stresses the need for career-oriented training.