The role of career guidance and counselling in career awareness and planning among public secondary school students in Kenya

Abstract

Guidance and counselling programme has become an important integral part of the school system in Kenya. Career guidance and counselling services which are components of the guidance and counselling programme are vital activities because one of the long-term goals of education is career placement. If education is to realise this goal, then learners should have appropriate career information and undertake career exploration before making career choices. This aspect of learning can only be effectively handled under the context of guidance and counselling; to create career awareness and career planning that will then influence learners’ career decisions. The purpose of this study was to assess the career awareness and planning among secondary school students and the role that career guidance and counselling plays in their career decision-making process. Further, the study looked into the perceptions of students, school counsellors, and class teachers about the role of career guidance and counselling. The study was a descriptive survey, and adopted the ex-post-facto research design. The study was conducted in Nyeri District, Nakuru District, and Nairobi Province of Kenya. The target population was 22,746 Form Three students in the 290 public secondary schools in the study areas. Stratified random sampling was used to select 392 students from 31 schools, for the study. In addition, purposive sampling was used to select 62 school counsellors and 62 class teachers to be included in the sample. The data was collected using three different questionnaires and analysed using the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) Version 11.0 computer programme. Descriptive statistics (frequency tables, percentages and cross tabulations), and inferential statistics (One-way ANOVA, Pearson’s correlation, and Chi-Square test) were used in data analysis. The findings of the study showed that students, school counsellors, and class teachers perceived that career guidance and counselling played a significant role in the career awareness and career planning of secondary school students. Majority of the students in Kenya’s secondary schools were found to have high levels of career awareness and career planning. From the findings it was observed that demographic characteristics such as category of school and setting of the school did not influence the career awareness and career planning of students. There were no gender differences in students’ career awareness, but female students had higher levels of career planning than male students. The results were expected to be significant in enriching the national human resource development process, through provision of appropriate career guidance and counselling services to secondary school students and beyond.