Minister for Finance and Labour & Employment, Dr Haseeb A Drabu, today advised students to see their career as an instrument of empowerment rather than a tool for just landing in a job.“Career is not limited to just having a job and earning some income. It also means pursuing growth and better positions deserving of your education, experience and effort,” Dr Drabu said.He said career is more relevant and empowering than a job. “I was inspired to become a lawyer, studied to be a doctor, applied for a teacher’s job, worked as an economist, edited a newspaper and ended up as a politician. In the end, it all ends well,” he said, to a thunderous applause from the students.The Minister was speaking at ‘Career Counselling and Guidance Programme’ organized by the Department of Libraries and Research in collaboration with the University of Kashmir and Indian Public Library Movement, Mindler Delhi and Plancess Mumbai.The function was also attended by Commissioner Secretary, Culture, Dilshad Khan, Vice-Chancellor, University of Kashmir, Khursheed Iqbal Andrabi, Director, Libraries and Research, Mukhtar-ul-Aziz and other dignitaries.
Dr Drabu said libraries in J&K should become knowledge hubs which attract people from all shades and ages. “In this digital age, my idea was to leverage libraries as places where people can engage intellectually and socially. I am happy that the idea has got ahead well,” he said.The Finance Minister said counselling students is not a sufficient condition to get a good job since the idea of counselling has evolved over the years, “There has to be a real change in mindset. All of you must be looking for good jobs and not careers. But a job is not what you want. You must have a good career. You can have a good career without having a job,” he said.Underlining the changes required for grooming J&K as a hub of intellectualism, Dr Drabu said the civil society of the state has to come forward in addressing the social issues facing the state, “As a society, we make social choices, that the best and brightest choose medicine followed by engineers. When we try and understand when a society makes a choice to put best and brightest in a particular field, what is the policy choice government makes?” he said.
The Finance Minister said the policy choice of the governments across the developing world are different from social choices made by the society, “If our best boys and girls become doctors, it must be the most lucrative profession, which unfortunately it isn’t because we are not providing the right kind of environment for the talent to flourish. In our part of the world, students are ill-equipped to handle the stress they face outside. How they can overcome it is the real challenge,” he said.Earlier, Director Libraries, Mukhtar-ul-Aziz presented a detailed resume of the ‘Career Counseling and Guidance Programme’ organized by his Department. Hundreds of students from various parts of the Valley joined the special career counseling programme where the counseling of students and parents was done by IIT toppers including Prateek Bhargav, CEO Mindler, PrikshitDanda, a leading Professional Career Counselor in the country trained from Harvard University, SupriyaDhanda, Anoop Panday, CEO Plances) and Ranjit Gakaray, Professional Counselor for IIT and Medical Aspirants.The students introduced to latest job-oriented and rewarding courses available in various institutions. They were also counseled about the colleges, procedure for admission and other related issues while planning for future studies.