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The basic purpose of career guidance is to help students to think about their approach to life, to become aware of their ambitions, and to acquire the abilities and attitudes that they will need to make decisions about their future careers according to their own wishes and on their own responsibility. It is therefore important to enhance students' understanding of themselves and to provide continuing guidance and assistance so that they can discover their own career paths. Students must be helped to develop their own points of view and philosophies through workplace visits, actual work experience, and career studies, focusing on the various modes of working and living as members of society, the joys and difficulties of work, and the significance and roles of occupations and work.

In providing guidance about the choice of future schools, it is important to enable students to gain a deeper and more concrete understanding of the culture and educational content of higher-level schools through research, visits, trial enrollments, and other methods. They must also be helped to select schools that will help them to achieve self-realization and to strive toward the attainment of the ambitions they themselves have chosen.

This guidance enables students to begin to examine their own abilities, aptitudes, interests, concerns, and ambitions and to choose specific career paths that reflect their own wishes and for which they will be responsible. Schools therefore need to maintain an organized and planned approach to this task by accurately monitoring students' abilities, aptitudes, and other characteristics, by collecting and utilizing a variety of career-related information, and by implementing activities designed to inform students.