Univariety, the largest career guidance and alumni leadership forum in India, today declared its unparalleled growth during the pandemic in partnership with Top Indian Schools for Career Guidance Programs. At this difficult time of year, Univariety, supported by InfoEdge, has brought a revolution to conventional education for students. The blended K-12 student guidance network has seen a sharp rise in the number of schools this year taking up their Career Guidance Program.

Over the past 8 months, Indian schools have struggled with many firsts including how to educate students online and keep them meaningfully occupied from home. Zoom classes, a term one had not even heard of until March 2020 have become a normal part of schooling. But that is not all. Schools across Tier 1 and Tier 2 cities of India, following different Boards of education, have actively adopted other fully online or blended programs that are adding value to students. One area that has seen a steep rise in popularity is Career Guidance.

“Univariety's Career Counseling Program is the right step in the right direction at this time”, asserts Harshita Sarkar, Counsellor at SSRVM School, Mumbai. “Students have received detailed career advice and useful lessons. They have been able to gain the correct understanding of the education system and the present business scenario. It has also helped children focus on their careers.”

Mohita Mehta, Counsellor at Ahlcon Intl School echoes her sentiments, saying “Although we have been collaborating with them for the past 3 years, Univariety has been all the more proactive during COVID by not only supporting students directly through webinars, but also arranging teacher sessions so that they can be better guides for students to make their career choices.”

Univariety's Career Guidance program has seen the biggest uptake during pandemic even though one would think it is hard enough for students to cope with online classes while teachers face challenges to complete the syllabus.

Nishi Misra, Principal of Gwalior’s prestigious Scindia Kanya Vidyalay, claims that school education can no longer be a standalone lesson plan delivery. She says, "Schools need to take a hard look at their duty to produce employable and aspiring people. By trial or error, we should not leave for students to find their places. It would be a pure waste of time and money." For more than 2 years now, Ms. Misra’s school has provided its students the Univariety Program.

Univariety is one of the few Ed-tech companies that has managed to stay relevant in a B2B model. Univariety's success with B2B is understandable given that their platform is tailor-made for schools and involves all stakeholders, including the school itself as well as students, parents, alumni and universities. It is a comprehensive offering that operates on a 4 pillar principle: Psychometric Assessments & Research Tools, Personalised Counselling, Alumni Guidance and University Guidance.

One of India's leading residential schools, the Assam Valley School, decided to adopt the whole Univariety approach, including certifying its teachers as Global Career Counsellors. Univariety, in partnership with UCLA Extension, offers the Global Career Counsellor Certification, India's most common Career Counsellor Certification. Thus, though schools introduce the Career Guidance Program, they also prepare teachers to become accredited career counsellors through this certification. "At Assam Valley School, we take pride in our teachers' ability to counsel our students as more than 30 teachers are GCC-UCLA certified counsellors," says Dr. Vidhukesh Vimal, Headmaster of the school.

The initiative of Sri Sri Academy Kolkata to create their own guidance cell led to the training of 8 senior teachers to become counsellors. Suvina Shunglu, the school's Founding Principal & Joint Secretary says," Great passion for guiding young students along with our engagement with Univariety has made us see career counselling in a new light. The idea of counselling as a complete package, including a multitude of resources such as parent and student counselling, a wide range of seminars, webinars and career-related assessments for a wide range of services such as parent and student counselling."

COVID-19 has brought about a revolution in mainstream education. With blended programs gaining prominence, it is not surprising that schools are embracing platforms like Univariety to redefine student success outcomes. So while many leading schools in the country have in-house Career Counsellors, Trilok Singh Bist, Principal of Delhi Public School Ghaziabad, Vasundhara sums it up: "While we have trained counsellors and teachers to guide students, we require a partner like Univariety to keep them up to speed with current career trends and make guidance accessible through technology."