Colleges Struggle To Meet Demand For Career Counselling
India needs to move beyond ad hoc counselling
Hyderabad: With growing uncertainty in the job market and limited guidance on career options, colleges are struggling to match the rising career counselling needs of students, whose worldview was shaped by the Covid-19 pandemic, a global survey has found.
According to the 2025 Annual Student Quest Report, India is one of the regions facing high student-to-counsellor ratios due to the rise in demand for guidance. About 83 per cent of counsellors surveyed worldwide reported a rise in requests for academic and career support, a pressure the report says is especially intense in India due to a shortage of trained professionals.
“A lot of students we see today are academically capable but emotionally unsure. They know they have to make choices early, but they don’t feel supported enough to understand what those choices really mean for them,” said Pravallika Mari, a Hyderabad-based psychologist who works closely with senior school students.
The strain is most visible among students graduating in 2026 and 2027. Unlike earlier cohorts, these students experienced prolonged school closures during their middle-school years, a phase widely seen as critical for building confidence, emotional regulation and independent thinking.
The report notes lasting effects on adaptability and decision-making, particularly in countries such as India where digital access and structured support varied sharply during the pandemic.
“Students as young as 14 are worrying about employability, financial security and whether they are already falling behind. These are adult anxieties arriving far too early, and schools are not structurally equipped to hold these conversations,” Mari said.
For many students, guidance remains sporadic or entirely absent. Globally, 40.45 per cent of students in 2024 reported having had no one-to-one interaction with a career counsellor. India is specifically cited as a country where staffing shortages and systemic constraints continue to limit regular, proactive counselling, even as academic pressure intensifies.
Career outcomes continue to dominate decision-making for Indian students, outweighing traditional markers such as institutional prestige or destination country. Yet uncertainty is growing. A rising share of students remain undecided about where or how to study, anxiety around affordability, changing job markets and unclear career pathways.
“Students often know what they are expected to aim for, but not how to reach it. Without consistent guidance, they internalise uncertainty as personal failure,” said Charan Velpula, a clinical psychologist, who works with an international school, where he regularly counsels adolescents preparing for board exams, told Deccan Chronicle.
Technology is filling some gaps, but unevenly, as students increasingly rely on artificial intelligence tools for career exploration and university research, while only 60.23 per cent of counsellors globally report using such tools in daily work, widening the advisory gap for Indian students.
The report argues that India needs to move beyond ad hoc counselling and embed career guidance across classrooms and education systems, warning that without structural change, uncertainty risks becoming a permanent feature of student life rather than a passing phase.
