The college and university education in India, by and large, is a mass education, therefore, the quality is suffering because students enter in university and college with any, guidance, and hence, there is a practical need for adequate guidance programme at this stage of our educational system.
As suggested by many scholars— guidance has to be made an integral part of higher education to make it meaningful and purposeful for the students.
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The kind of guidance programme which may be introduced can be inherent (unintentional and unorganised), informal (intentional but not coordinated), and professional (well-organised). There is no doubt about this fact that inherent and informal programmes have their place in an educational institution.
But it needs hardly any emphasis that a programme, if it is to make its impact felt on the growth and development of students and enhance the quantity and improve the quality of the educational programme as a whole, there needs to be set up a well-organised structure covering the three major functions of the programme viz., adjustmental, orientational and developmental.
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It is true that a structure never guarantees the success of an operation, but there is no doubt that a poor structure can be a major obstacle to success.
The nature and organisational set-up of colleges and universities differ in our country at present, therefore, we cannot suggest an uniform organizational set-up for guidance and counselling for all colleges and universities, hence, hereunder we are suggesting different set-ups for colleges and universities, which may be modified by the concerned college or universities as per their need and resources (Note: see last two pages of this chapter).
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The Counselling Officer in the university should be in the Reader’s grade while the Assistant Counselling Officer may be in the Lecturer’s grade.
Each university should have a specialist coordinator of Guidance Services to help the counselling officers or Liaison Officers in different colleges.