Page 65 - DEDU502_GUIDANCE_AND_COUNSELING_ENGLISH

Unit 6: Educational and Vocational Guidance

Putting it briefly, it can be said that the psychologist arranges a curriculum that suits well with Notes
the child’s gifts.
6.6.3 Consideration of Failures at Examination
In the intermediate and high school examinations held every year by the U.P. Board of High
School and Intermediate examination, the results are almost invariably below 50 per cent. More
than half the students that appear for the examinations fail to pass them. And while one hears a
few odd cases of suicide that are the result of this failure there are many more individuals who
become discouraged and give up their educational career when it has just begun. Some of the
enterprising turn of anti-social activity, others lose their mental balance, while a major portion
of them become frustrated. Almost all educationists are of the view that as a result of this very
high rate of failures, the nation’s wealth and strength are being greatly undermined. On the face
of it, it is a national problem or at best the fault of the state’s faulty educational methods and
educational organisation that admits of almost no interference on the psychologist’s part, but he
can nevertheless resolve the factors that lead children of failure in examinations through his
guidance.
6.6.4 Encouragement to the Child’s Inspiration to Study

Another problem that makes itself felt to the psychologists is when a particular child evinces lack
of inspiration and enthusiasm to study. Causes of this lack of motivation may both the personal
as well as related to the environment whether social, family or school. Among the personal
reasons can be physical factors such as a weak constitution or mental reasons such as anxiety and
irritation. Environmental factors are concerned either with the home or the school. As far as the
school is concerned it may produce a variety of causes such as uninteresting curriculum and
routine, the method of education of teaching being anything but psychological, absence of extra-
curriculuar programmes, etc. The psychologist shifts all these factors and causes, and then advises
the child to create motivation in him. In fact, this can be achieved more by removing cause that
destroy motivation than by any guidance. For this the psychologist can jointly exert themselves
to create a condition in which the student will take an interest in his education of his own
volition. Then, and only then, the child can be inspired to take an interest in the study of his
subjects.
6.6.5 Removal of Weakness in Particular Subjects
Yet another problem confronts the psychologist when a student shows signs of being weak in
some particular subject or subjects. English, for example, is one subject in which most students in
Uttar Pradesh are lamentably weak. A major portion of college students failing is of those who
fail in the English language papers. Some students evade some subjects as if they were running
for the safety of their very lives. Mathematics, for example, is another subject that is something
of burden for many people, equalled perhaps only by grammar for the dread it causes. Weakness
in a particular subject is not due to lack of the required ability in the students, but more often
because the student fails to take keen interest in that subject. Through tests and observation the
psychologist can locate the individual cause that is responsible for the weakness. If it is the study
of that subject as soon as possible, or if some ability can possibly be injected into the students,
efforts should be made to creat it in him. If the cause of weakness is something else, then in that
case teachers, parents, the psychologist and the student can cooperate to put an end to the
meaningless weakness threatening the student’s progress.

A gifted child does not find the ordinary programme that satisfies and invigorates
the average child, satisfying and helpful.

LOVELY PROFESSIONAL UNIVERSITY 59