Asian Journal of Economics and Empirical Research Vol. 1, No. 1, 10-15, August 2014 Publish by Asian online Journal Publishing Group URL: www.asianonlinejournals.com 10 Molding the Young for Proper Socio-Economic Development: The Case for Vocational Guidance and Counselling in the Secondary School System in Zimbabwe Maxwell Constantine Chando Musingafi (Zimbabwe Open University: Department of Development Studies) Racheal Mafumbate (Zimbabwe Open University; Department of Counselling) Abstract 1. Introduction Comprehensive developmental school counselling programmes positively impact students, parents, teachers, administrators, boards of education, other student services personnel, school counsellors, business, and industry. Thus borrowing from Shumba (1995), no child should go through secondary school education without having received guidance and counselling because this tends to lead students to develop unrealistic ambitions that result in them becoming discontented members of the society. In this paper we look at some of the benefits of vocational guidance and counselling in the secondary school system as supported by empirical evidence from the USA, UK, Canada, Hong Kong, Malawi and Zimbabwe. The paper is based on literature review and content analysis. We place the benefits of guidance and counselling in the secondary school system into three categories as identified by Chireshe (2006). These benefit categories include personal-social, scholastic-academic, career and vocational benefits. We start by exploring the meaning of important concepts before exploring the benefits of guidance and counselling and arguing the case for vocational guidance and counselling in the secondary school system in Zimbabwe. 2. Definition of Terms Guidance: The concepts guidance and counselling carry differing but overlapping meanings (Chireshe, 2006). Guidance is broader than counselling and contains the latter (Mapfumo, 1992). Guidance encompasses those services and programmes of the school, which are specifically intended to promote educational, career, and personal-social development of students (Chireshe, 2006). Bhatnagar and Gupta (1999) define guidance as a process of helping the individual find solutions to his own problems and accept them as his own. It is thus a process, developmental in nature, by which an individual is assisted to understand, accept and use his/her abilities, aptitudes and interests and attitudinal patterns in relation to his/her aspirations. (Guez and Allen, 2000). Guidance programmes for secondary school students are designed to address the physical, emotional, social and academic difficulties of adolescence (Abid, 2006). It is thus an umbrella term encompassing many services aimed at students‟ personal and career development (Hughes and Karp, 2004). Career / Vocation: According to UNESCO (2000) a career is a sequence of major positions occupied by a person throughout life. It is the totality of work one does in a lifetime (Sadock and Sadock, 2003). A vocation is defined by UNESCO (2000) as an urge or commitment to work in a particular occupation. It is equated to a career or In this desktop based paper we argue the case for school based vocational guidance and counselling services in Zimbabwe. We establish that school based vocational guidance and counselling services help students to reflect on their ambitions, interests and abilities. Young people experience problems, especially in their vocational development and eventually leading to a mismatch in the job market world. These include a lack of knowledge of their own aptitudes and interests; a lack of realism; indecision; inflexibility and unwillingness to change; a lack of occupational information; problem-solving skills; and gender stereotypes. Our argument in this paper is that in the modern constantly changing world, students should be helped to seek and use current occupational information, clarify their own values, feelings and attitudes, and relate them to educational and vocational demands. We thus categorize the benefits of guidance and counselling into the following groups: personal-social benefits; scholastic-academic benefits; and career vocational benefits. Keywords: Guidance, Counselling, Socio-economic Development, Vocation, Career, Secondary school