Bringing parents along on students’ academic journeys

In the olden days, when everything was in monochrome (or sepia), life was simple: food only came in shades of beige, policemen were older than us, telephones were connected to a wall by a wire and nobody needed university counsellors.

Schools had a careers teacher who, in my own experience, offered a range of suggestions that ran from A to C (join the army, work in a bank or become a car mechanic). The girls were advised to do secretarial courses to tide them over until they got married and became housewives.

If your parents did go to university, their choices were likely to be based on advice from a subject teacher or confined to the nearest city.

Understanding biases

The rapid growth in international education and mobility over the last 25 years or so has radically changed that picture. The myriad opportunities open to our students create an ever-more-complex matrix of routes, entry requirements, application systems, visas and financial commitments.

As well as advising our students, we need to ensure that their parents are carried along on the wind of change. While the students tend to be comfortable with the changing world of higher education, often it is parents who need more guidance, particularly when it comes to perhaps entrenched ideas about the value of further study, choices or applications.

Here are a few examples:

1. “I didn’t go to university and I’m now very successful. Waste of time going to university. He should go out and get a job.”

2. “She needs to do a course leading to a job for life: law, accountancy or engineering.”

3. “I don’t see the point in studying abroad. You can always travel later in life.”

4. “Gap year? Nobody I knew took a year off.”

Apologies for the stereotypes. There is actually a serious point to this article, which is that involving parents in counselling or careers sessions is an important part of the university counsellor’s role. Although assuming that information we impart to our students will get passed on to parents, this isn’t always the case. And I’m sure we have all faced situations where the students’ aspirations don’t overlap with parental experiences or plans.

And don’t criticise what you can’t understand

Addressing these examples:

1. ‘I didn’t go to university and I’m now very successful. Waste of time going to university. He should go out and get a job’

Of course, not all students want to go on to further study after graduating from high school, and for others a more vocational route is appropriate. Counsellors need to incorporate careers advice into their sessions, or work in partnership with school careers advisers.

It is worth highlighting that, according to Unesco data, the number of students continuing studies after high school globally has doubled in the last 20 years. The biggest jumps are in Asia and Africa, but every global region has recorded an increase over the period.

What this means is that there are more jobseekers with higher-level qualifications in the market, chasing fewer jobs. And so a university or similar qualification is likely to be more valuable than it used to be when our parents were thinking about their futures.

2. ‘She needs to do a course leading to a job for life: law, accountancy or engineering’

The world of work has changed rapidly in recent years, and the rate of change looks set to increase in future years. Fewer people stay in the same jobs for their entire working lives, and an emphasis on skills rather than knowledge is becoming more often the main criterion that employers are using to select employees.

Preparing students for jobs that don’t yet exist is becoming a focus for universities. The presentation by Professor Shanton Chang of the University of Melbourne, “Careers and Employability in a Post-Pandemic AI-Driven World”, is definitely worth sharing with parents.

3. ‘I don’t see the point in studying abroad. You can always travel later in life’

The number of students studying outside their home countries has tripled since 2001. Students with international experience can demonstrate a range of skills and personal qualities that can help with future employment. International study also gives them valuable life experience. University counsellors in international schools are stationed on the front line of this trend.

4. ‘Gap year? Nobody I knew took a year off’

Parents are often concerned about the potential pitfalls of a gap year or period away from studies. They worry that their child will lose interest in or forget how to study.

They often need reassurance that, with proper planning, a gap year can serve many valuable purposes: students gain new skills, develop maturity and find that their ideas about what to study at university are reinforced.

The key is to involve parents in the planning of the time away from study, perhaps by inviting them to a presentation or workshop on the subject. Most universities view gap years in a positive light as they give the students a more mature perspective – they have had time to reflect on what they want to study, leading to lower dropout rates. Each year, up to 10 per cent of UK university applicants have had or are taking gap years.

Getting involved

Returning to the point about involving parents as much as possible, in my experience counting on students relaying information back home doesn’t work well – but putting on parent-only presentations can make the students feel excluded from the process. I have tried joint student-parent sessions, but students are often inhibited in these situations and so don’t ask questions or contribute.

What has worked best for me is to do a presentation on, say, studying in the European Union with the students, and then invite parents to join for the second half, where I will recap what I have covered with the students (including their questions or comments), present data on numbers and fees and then invite them to ask questions or contribute their own experiences.

I also run an open-house session for parents after school once a week, if they want to discuss options in more depth.