Establishing a gender sensitive career counseling CHOICES: Helping women make better career reducing disparities in employment through effective career counselling for women in Pakistan

The study was carried out by the International Labour Organization’s project ‘Towards Gender Parity in Pakistan’. This report covers the entire course of the CHOICES project that was developed in line with the objectives of the 'Towards Gender Parity' project and was conceptualized as the pilot test of an action-based research initiative attempting to reduce gender disparities by introducing gender sensitive career counseling. CHOICES itself represents the career counseling centre that was the planned outcome of the project activities. Three educational institutions, Institute of Management Sciences, University of Peshawar and the University of Karachi, provided resource persons who participated in the project and who are involved in establishing CHOICES units at each of these institutions. This report concludes with key lessons and recommendations for subsequent replication generated from the research, material development and workshop implementation involved in this pilot test. The study concludes that it is recommended to replicate this project on a broader scale and over a longer duration of time to allow for in-depth planning and monitoring.