Career Counseling: From Education to Employability

TRF’s main focus has been career counseling in government schools, to assist children in making informed choices about further education and employment. Through the Community Radio, TRF will be able to broadcast a regular career program giving detailed information on educational requirements, training, employment opportunities, positives and negatives, and even interviews with people who have pursued that profession. From teacher, bureaucrat, plumber, engineer and security guard to doctor, journalist, model, gardener, hair stylist and software programmer: the career program will cover over 100 career options, and what you need to pursue any one of them.

Another element in employability is the ability to speak English. It is an urgent need that the community is keen to address through the radio station. The Community Radio station plans to broadcast regular programming to assist the community to build English speaking skills that they can utilize regardless of the profession they are pursuing.

Our own needs assessment surveys as well as nationwide surveys have consistently shown that reading and basic arithmetic skills in children studying in government schools falls below acceptable levels. Children in Class 8 often read at the level of a child in Class 1 or 2. With these basic skills missing, these children get left behind in class, and find it next to impossible to catch up, given the lack of educational support structures at home.

During our own surveys (taken among schoolchildren between classes 6 and 12), undertaken in November 2008, one of the most critical gaps that has emerged is lack of reading ability in children as old at 13 and 14. We have had girls and boys in classes 7 and 8 not being able to read (or write) the survey questionnaire because they were not able to read the questions (written in Hindi) or independently write their answers. (In the subjective questions). These children can transcribe from the blackboard or from another child's notebook or from a textbook. It is a situation where the cart is really before the horse. These children can write, but not read.

To bridge this gap, TRF is partnering with the NGO Pratham, and Pratham Books to launch Pratham’s Read India project on radio. The project, which will take the shape of a daily radio program recorded in-situ in Pratham’s schools, aims to reach 150 schools in Gurgaon, within the 20 km radius of the community radio footprint.

The radio station’s weekly health program aims to increase general health awareness within the community. Many of the schoolchildren already take part in a Health Parliament organized by St. Stephens Hospital, Delhi’s outreach program. Partnering with this program, and with the inputs of volunteer doctors who live in Gurgaon, the radio program will allow women to phone in and talk to a doctor without leaving their homes. The program will also feature information on nearest health centres, upcoming free health camps, and prevention and immunization of childhood diseases.

Children will be encouraged to write and produce their own radio plays, record jokes and limericks, sing songs, recite poems, play musical instruments – in general give unrestrained expression to their talents and their cultural heritage. Women and men of the community will be encourage to record traditional Haryanvi folklore, stories, songs etc, and share them with the larger community.

The radio station will also invite Haryanvi folk artists, musicians, singers, and dramatists to record their work in our studio at no cost, provided they give complete broadcasting rights to the community radio station. This will not only popularize their work amidst a large community, but will give the community access to songs and plays in their own dialect.