Over 3000 third-form students are expected to participate in the Barbados Association of Guidance Counsellors’ first ever virtual National Career Showcase.
The two-day annual showcase is being held online from May 26 – 27 due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
President of the association, Dr Patricia Welch told Barbados TODAY this year’s event, which is in its 14th year, had to be scaled down because of the limitations of hosting it online.
She said while the showcase was usually open from third to sixth formers, those large numbers could not be facilitated in the virtual format.
Dr Welch revealed that students from 23 secondary schools and two private schools were expected to attend the showcase.
“This is the first virtual one. We did not have one last year because we were in the midst of the pandemic and therefore we had had plans to execute it but we shifted it because of the nature of what we were dealing with and a lot of things were being cancelled, even within the schools,” she pointed out.
“Usually we would be in the physical environment and that afforded us the opportunity to engage over 5000 students from the third years to the sixth years, but this year we have decided that we are going to pilot it because of the virtual space and therefore decided to only concentrate on the third years.”
Dr Welch said professionals in the areas of information technology, arts, video technology, manufacturing, finance, science, agriculture, and food law, among others, would conduct presentations at the showcase.
Vice-president, Karen Haynes explained that one of the main objectives of the event was to expose students to various career options that exist.
She said one of the reasons behind targeting third-year students was due to the fact they now had to make subject choices to enter fourth form.
“It is at that critical juncture where they are making their subject choices for the future and the choices that they make at this point in time are going to impact their futures in significant ways.
“When they are going into fourth form they are preparing to write their CSEC examinations and that is a two-year programme, so the choices that they make in third form will have implications for the next two years and so we would want our students to make sure that the choices that they make are based on sound principles and also that they make selections that will guide them and have them adequately prepared for the careers of their choice,” Haynes said.
