10 May 2023
Aspire Academy has been praised for organizing a meeting for career counsellors from different governmental and international schools around Qatar.
The Aspire Career Forum on Monday 8 May heard from several guest speakers and offered the delegates a chance to meet to exchange ideas and developments in career counselling.
The one-day workshop was aimed at helping to develop the process of quality career guidance and was in line with the Qatar National Vision 2030.
The forum brought together more than 100 career counsellors at Aspire Academy to provide training workshops which enhanced and highlighted the latest developments in career guidance practices in Qatar and globally
John Singh, the careers adviser and head of the sixth form at Newton British Academy in Barwa City, was full of praise for the meeting.
“Events like these are gems because careers as a subject is something that needs to be more closely looked at by students and teachers and not just parents alone,” he said.
“I try to attend as many of these events as I can and Aspire was one of the first that I was really engaged with, and I have learnt quite a bit from a fantastic line-up of guest speakers.
“I think I can go back to my institution and share a lot of stuff that we can implement in the new year which I think will be valuable to the growth and development of our students.”
His thoughts were echoed by Mark Gostelow, the head of the sixth form at Mesaieed International School.
“I think it has been really interesting to hear the views of the people speaking to learn more about how we can support our young students to make the right decisions in terms of their career choices and the process of applying to university,” he explained.
“It is a great event where we can network and get to know other teachers and people in other roles across the country.”
Jaime LaDawn Roya the school counsellor and Qatar Academy Sidra was another delegate who found the meeting invaluable.
“I think it is incredible I think it is something that’s needed it should be annual because there is always new information happening within the college counselling sector,” she said.
“Having events like this will help the counsellors stay up-to-date and in the know of what the best practices are.”
Najla Assad, who is currently an English teacher at Edison Global Academy in Lusail felt the event was very useful for her aim of becoming a counsellor.
“It has opened a lot of new perspectives for me as I am planning to be a counsellor in the future,” she said.
“It was amazing and helped me think about how to start, where to start, where to look for information online as well as the networking with the people that I met.
“The atmosphere I loved it everyone was welcoming the guest speakers were great.”