Career Education In Senior High Sch

Tuesday July 28, 2009
By Felix Essah-Hienno

“THE Ghana Education Service (GES) through its Guidance and Counseling Unit is committed to dissemination of relevant information to students, parents, schools authorities and all stakeholders in education on the best opportunities, options and other requirements for admission to tertiary and other educational institutions in Ghana”.

This was stated by the late John Budu-Smith Director –General of GES, on May 9, 2002 in a circular to Heads of Schools, when recommending the book “Your guide to higher education in Ghana”, written by Godfried Funkor, as a resource book for career orientation in schools.

There are many key challenges confronting students globally as they climb the academic and professional ladder.

These challenges include getting adequate information and orientation on the opportunities opened by higher learning.

Most students often miss brilliant opportunities to pass their examinations excellently, gain admission into tertiary or other higher educational institutions, offer the most prestigious courses and enter the best professions and job markets, which could turn them into very successful people in the world.

This is simply due to the fact that (students), their parents, teachers, educational authorities, administrators and policy makers lack the vital data and information input needed to make the difference in their academic and professional development.

Our Junior High School (JHS) 3 pupils, as part of the Computerise School Selection and Placement System (CSSPS) formalities, are made to select programmes of study on the placement forms as part of the admission processes in getting admitted to SHS.

It is often said that the most critical stage in our educational enterprise is the SHS level, where the elective programme a student reads impacts to a large extent on the student’s future fortunes.

The new entrants do not seem to understand and appreciate the programmes that they selected on placement forms at the JHS and which to a large extent are the programmes offered them at the SHS.

It is important to draw this distinction.

The first stage of the educational ladder – the basic education which spans the kindergarten to the JHS – places emphasis on the acquisition of numeracy and literacy skills.

If a pupil is numerate and literate, the pupil will have had the needed foundation to propel him/her to the next level, which is the second cycle education.

Because career guidance had not been carried out satisfactorily at the JHS, many students do select wrong programmes only to enter the second cycle institutions to be stared with programme options they have little or no ideas about.

It is a sad commentary that quite a number of students who get admitted to the first year of SHS do state that their programmes of study, more often than not were dictated or imposed on them by their parents/guardians.

This unfortunate development is one of the main reasons why career guidance is of utmost importance in our schools particularly SHS.

There have been countless instances where first year SHS students had approached their Headmasters/Headmistresses wanting to change their programmes of study immediately after exposing them (the students) to career guidance seminar during one or two weeks orientation.

It is therefore absolutely in place that the Conference of Heads of Assisted Secondary Schools (CHASS) has adopted “Your Guide to Higher Education in Ghana” (Volumes 1 & 2) as a resource book to be used for career education during orientation seminars for fresh SHS students.

Apart from exposing users to more excellent opportunities, the book’s major advantage is that it enhances a comparative analysis of various options for the purpose of better planning and decision-making for future career.

It also enhances further understanding of the realities in higher education and generates competition and improvement in teaching and learning, as students and teachers strive to meet the targets and requirements of particular institutions and courses.

Every Parent/Guardian no doubt wants the best education for his/her ward, but when it comes to higher education advice to our children, it is most difficult without appropriate information.

It is pertinent for school administrators, teachers, students and in some instances parents/guardians to have some insight into career choices opened to students especially those in second cycle schools who need to make the correct career choices.

“Your guide to higher education in Ghana” has come to fill that gap.

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