The Choice of a Profession by Blind Senior Students and their Relevance to the Labor Market

This article presents results of the research on the professional orientation and employment of blind graduates of schools in six regions of the Russian Federation specialising in teaching children with visual impairments. Also analysis related to the situation with the employment of people with visual disabilities are given. This analysis are based on information from Russian Association Of The Blind. Reasons of low rates of the employment of young people with disabilities are shown. The dependence of the awareness of the choice of the profession by the blind during the period of school education on specifics of the organisation of vocational guidance work for children with visual impairments, as well as on the level of maturity of the personality and personal qualities of students is presented. The ways of overcoming the reasons negatively affecting the results of career guidance work and the employment of graduates of special schools are indicated. Examples of effective career guidance work and successful employment of young people with visual deprivation are given. The article is Amed at researchers involved in education of children with visual disabilities, organisers of career guidance work, tiflopedagogs and parents who have blind children.

1. Kondratov A.G. Tiflopsikhologiya [Tiflopsychology]. Moscow: Prosveshchenie, 1985. 208 p.
2. Materialy Cheturnadtzatoi nauchno-prakticheskoi konferentsii «Otnoshencheskie bar'ery: obshchestvo i invalidy» [Elektronnyi resurs] [Proceedings of the Foureenth conference “Communication bareer: society of blind”]. Institut professional'noi reabilitatsii i podgotovki personala obshcherossiiskoi obshchestvennoi organizatsii invalidov – vserossiiskogo ordena trudovogo krasnogo znameni obshchestva slepykh «Reakomp». URL: http://www.rehacomp.ru/services/events/events_340.html (Accessed 18.11.2013).
3. Obrazovanie dlya vsekh – informatsionnyi byulleten', no. 2 [Elektronnyi resurs] [Education for everybody – information bulletin, no. 2]. Ofitsial'nyi sait regional'noi obshchestvennoi organizatsii invalidov «Perspektiva» [“Perspective”]. URL: http://www.perspektiva-inva.ry/index.php7id-247(Accessed 18.11.2013).
4. Romanov P., Yarskaya-Smirnova E. Politika invalidnosti: Sotsial'noe grazhdanstvo invalidov v sovremennoi Rossii [Policy of disability]. Saratov: Nauchnaya kniga, 2006. 83 p.
5. Sokolov V.V. Psikhologo-pedagogicheskie osobennosti obucheniya shkol'nikov so zritel'noi deprivatsiei rabote na personal'nom komp'yutere [Psychological and pedagogical features of teaching students with visual deprivation of work on a personal computer]. Psikhologicheskaya nauka i obrazovanie [Psychological science and education], 2015. Vol. 20, no. 2, pp. 93–102. doi:10.17759/pse.2015200210. (In Russ., abstr. in Engl.).
6. Sokolov V.V., Komova N.S. Metodicheskie rekomendatsii dlya RUMTs po organizatsii obucheniya v vuze studentov s glubokim narusheniem zreniya, obuchayushchikhsya po programmam bakalavriata v oblasti matematiki i prikladnoi informatika [Methodical recommendations for RUMC on the organization of study in the university of students with deep visual impairment, studying under the bachelor's programs in the field of mathematics and applied informatics]. Moscow: MGPPU, 2016. 54 p.