CAREER QUEST: Students at a career counselling fair in Calcutta. A Telegraph picture

Every private school in the city could soon be identifying potential doctors, engineers, lawyers, managers and academics as early as in Class VI and counselling them to make appropriate career choices.

Richard Gasper, the academic inspector of the St Augustine’s group of schools, said career planning and counselling would no longer be restricted to students of classes XI and XII.

“We have decided to redesign normal classroom teaching in such a manner that teachers can identify a child’s areas of interest when he/she is in Class VI or VII. Once the child is in Class VIII, we will try to groom him/her for a particular profession in consultation with the parents.”

Some more schools are moving in that direction, introducing counselling sessions for students of lower classes.

“The range of career options has increased. Every student must know what profession he/she is best suited for by Class IX. If you ask me, career counselling should start in Class IV,” Dilip Bhattacharya, the principal of MCKV Vidyapith, in Howrah, said.

The school encourages students to start planning their careers from the time they reach Class VII. The idea is to identify deficiencies early and work on eliminating them.

For instance, a student who aspires to be an MBA may do well in academics but not have the temperament to become a manager. His school will, in consultation with the student’s parents or guardians, address this problem through training and counselling.

The principal of a girls’ school in central Calcutta said students were being “monitored” to identify potential. “It could be as simple as observing how they carry themselves and even the way they talk. We found a girl studying in Class VIII with all the qualities required to become a successful manager. But her parents wanted her to study science so that she could join an engineering course. So we started counselling the parents.”

St Augustine’s has organised a career counselling fair at Rabindra Bhavan, in Shyamnagar, for students of classes XI to XII, in collaboration with 14 other private English-medium institutions. The two-day fair begins on Tuesday.