What does your kid want to be when s/he grows up?
When I was still small, I had a standard answer to the question “What do you want to be when you grow up?” I always told people that I wanted to be a doctor. Honestly, I had no idea why I wanted to be a doctor. But what I remember is that almost all the kids in my class had the same answer. But I guess if you asked us why we wanted to be a doctor, we would just have said “because doctors are rich”.
When I was a kid, nobody really cared to tell us what our career options were and what we should do to reach our goals. But kids nowadays are more fortunate as there are many programs and initiatives that are created to help them make informed choices concerning their future.
Recently, the Ministry of Education launched ecareers.sg, an interactive web-based portal, which is geared towards helping Primary 5 and 6 students make informed choices of their professional aspirations for the future. Through this portal, students can explore various industries that are featured in colorful illustrations using their personalised “avatars”. Also, students can engage in interactive games to discover their strengths and weaknesses as well as their interests.
This is truly a great tool that kids can use to look at opportunities that may be available for them in the future. Through this, they can start making plans on how to live their lives even when they are still young. Right now, it’s being test-piloted in 23 primary schools but it’s expected to be rolled out to all primary schools in June this year.
