Job Shadowing Programme

During the month of May, children participated in Shaishav’s pilot Job Shadowing programme. Over the years, Shaishav has found that by the time children reach 10th standard and have to decide their course of study, they are unprepared to make decisions about their future and/or are unable to pursue a career of their choice because they have not prepared properly to get the marks that they need. In order to address this problem, we believe it is important to develop a career-oriented outlook from an early age, well before students become caught up in preparing for 10th standard exams. As such we started the innovative Job Shadowing programme that would focus on developing this outlook in 7th and 8th standard students. We aimed to expose children to a variety of occupations so that they would envision a wide range of options for their futures. We also strived to equip the children with various skills and techniques that would help them assess their strengths in order to match them with the needs of potential occupations and also teach them how to recognize opportunities for their futures.

The programme began with a meeting with the children about the motivation behind job shadowing and training on what kinds of questions to ask when visiting different sites. The children would reach the different places on their own, ask questions, learn how to do small tasks, and observe professionals in action. Small groups of children would visit a certain job site for 2-3 hours in the morning for 1-3 days at a time. In the afternoon, the children would come to Shaishav’s office for 2 hours to discuss the day’s activities and to learn theory related to career development. These topics were taught through group work, discussion, games, and other activities.

The children wrote daily reports about what they did and learned at each occupation in order to synthesize their learning and develop their report-writing skills. They found out about the level of education, personal qualities, and skills necessary for each occupation. They gained confidence in speaking to adults and strangers through asking questions and gained a sense of independence by traveling around to job sites on their own.

The children visited such organizations and offices as: the Blood Bank, the Police Department (C-Division), PNR Society, the Railway Division, PGCL, State Bank of Saurashtra, Gujarat Industrial Development Corporation (Sonal Buscuits, Dilbahar, and A1 Bakery), a photography studio, the Fire Brigade, Gandhi Smurti, and Sardar Smurti. During the theory portion of the programme, the children conducted a S.L.O.T. analysis of themselves, discussed their dreams and future goals, learned about other jobs and vocations that they did not visit in person, and conducted a project in which they interviewed people in their neighborhoods to find out how they got into their careers and then presented the findings to the rest of the job shadowing group.

We have received positive feedback from the children, professionals, and other observers of the programme and hope to collaborate with high schools to continue the programme throughout the school year.

BACK