Formal careers guidance services are a product of economic and social development. In relatively primitive societies, allocation to adult roles is determined largely by the family, caste or class into which one is born. As the society becomes more complex, these systems start to break down, and careers guidance services are needed to lubricate -and, perhaps, catalyse (Daws, 1977) -increasing levels of social and occupational mobility. How then is the role of careers guidance evolving in those Third World countries that are trying so to accelerate the pace of economic and social development that they will be able to catch up with the living standards attained by the Western world? How far are they being influenced by the approaches to careers guidance that have evolved in such countries as the USA and Britain? How applicable are these approaches to cultures that in many ways are very different? An opportunity to examine these questions in the context of one developing country -Malaysia -was afforded by a visit carried out in February-March 1977. This article outlines some impressions of the careers guidance system that seems to be emerging there.
GUIDANCE PROVISION AND PROBLEMS
Malaysia consists of the former Federation of Malaya, Sarawak, and Sabah (North Borneo). It is one of the richest of the developing countries, its wealth being principally based on tin, rubber, oil palm, and timber. There are though great disparities of wealth, many people living little above subsistence level. The population is multi-lingual and multi-racial: nearly half are Malays, about a third are Chinese, and the rest include Indians as well as Dayaks and other indigenous groups. The integration of Sabah and Sarawak with the Malay states is not yet fully complete, but gradually their educational systems, for example, are being brought into line with that in Peninsular Malaysia (the comments here will relate mainly to the latter, though most will * National Institute for Careers Education and Counselling (CRAC and The Hatfield Polytechnic, U.K.