Advisers play a crucial role

If you are the parent of a teenager finishing school, you could well be spending your nights sifting through university applications. And your search may well extend to Australia and parts of Asia.

Given the investment needed for a university or tertiary education, the decision of which course to plump for, is becoming increasingly important. For parents of good all-rounders, deciding between optometry and dentistry can take months of agonising.

At times like these the school's careers adviser can play a vital role in helping the student and their families make the right choice. And schools are putting more resources into these advisers, with the larger ones employing whole teams to do the job.

Avondale College principal Brent Lewis says having a careers advice service at the school is "critical".

The college has a careers director who runs programmes associated with getting students to think about their interests and plans for the future.

"Apart from anything else, you are setting objectives for young people so that they understand the implications academically and personally, and the possible outcomes [of their choices].

"Everyone is making choices which will be opening some doors and closing others," says Lewis.

The college runs careers evenings which prompt students to start thinking about their futures.

Dale Furbish, programme leader for the graduate diploma in career development at AUT, says a master's programme has just been approved for next year.

Most of the advisers being appointed by schools have a teaching background and are continuing to teach as well as advise on careers, he says, but this may change.

"More schools are realising that pulling a teacher out of the class for half a day a week is not an adequate amount of time... It can't be picked up in a day or two - it really is a whole field of study," he says.

One of the key roles of a careers adviser now is to help the parent.

"Research shows that family influence is still a major factor in a careers decision. Going to university and being a lawyer or a doctor or an accountant is still an attractive option," says Furbish.

Many parents have gone through a different education system and are not familiar with the present one.

"Parents feel a bit on the back foot... The job market is changing so rapidly, half the jobs now never existed when they were starting out. There is a global market to pick from now," says Avondale College's Lewis.

What Furbish teaches his budding career advisers is that a career is an ongoing process, not a one-time thing that you decide on at 16 or 17.

"Things change too much. More people see now that... it is about looking at the opportunities and options available and having the decision-making skills so that they are more able to make a satisfactory decision, says Furbish. "Not everyone is ready to make a hard and fast decision about their career - there are too many variables."

Universities such as the University of Auckland have a close working relationship with career advisers.

Ken Rapson, director of the schools partnership office at the University of Auckland, and the former principal of Mt Roskill Grammar, says his staff spend a lot of time going out to schools to meet career advisers.

"There is a huge diversity out there in terms of courses that people can take... careers teachers can play a significant role to play in disseminating all the information."

And it's not just universities that students have to choose from. There are now more opportunities for apprenticeships for those of a more practical bent.