Traxler and North have stressed that the teachers and counsellors should join hands for an effective guidance programme.
They write, “Teachers and counsellors need to combine their efforts to help young people to understand themselves, to see the subject- matter of each field in relation to their own strengths and limitations, and to appreciate the need for developing broad abilities and skills to meet the vocational demands of tomorrow as hundreds of new occupations are developing to meet the new needs, and hundreds of others are rendered obsolete or relegated to places of minor importance.
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This is primarily a learning situation and the teachers, more than anyone else, can open doors through which the student may glimpse his own future.”
The teachers are, in fact, the most useful allies of the counselling/liaison officers. It is they who have the closest, the most frequent and the most extended contacts with students in a natural situation.
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Without their co-operation, guidance service can never become an integral part of any educational programme. Their part, in the over-all programme, is inevitable.
The teachers can help in the programme by:
1. Playing a primary role in advising and orientation, in making known to the students the requirements and future job possibilities connected with their particular subjects;
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2. Providing vocational motivation to the subjects taught by them;
3. Assessing the achievements of the students and thus enabling them to know better their strengths and weaknesses in certain subjects;
4. Enabling the students to explore and develop interest by integrating the curricular and co-curricular activities and thus orienting them towards worthy goals;
5. co-ordinating the efforts of various agencies, parents and guidance workers and thus raising guidance to a scientific level;
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6. Detecting early symptoms of any abnormality in the students’ make up and drawing the counselling or liaison officer’s attention; and
7. Rendering “mental hygiene first-aid” and helping students remain on the right track.
To be of solid help, the teacher should:
1. Study the needs, interests, abilities and problems of each student in his class.
2. Win the confidence of the students and help them in every possible way to evaluate their own growth.
3. Get acquainted with the parents and take an active part in Parent Teacher Association.
4. Instruct the students in appropriate methods of applying for posts.
5. Co-operate with placement organisations in their task of making specific suggestions and finding suitable openings.
6. Follow-up those students they advise by obtaining progress reports on their satisfaction.
Teachers have an important role in assisting the students conserve their native capacities and invest and use the same so as to bring greatest satisfaction to themselves and benefit to society.