Evaluation of career knowledge of senior secondary schools students in Oyo State, Nigeria

Abstract

Career knowledge is a necessity at the senior secondary school level if misplacement of talents, poor academic performance, unemployment and workers’ frustration will be nipped in the bud in Nigeria. Studies have shown that poor career knowledge, poor academic performance and high school drop out are rampant in secondary schools. This paper therefore evaluated the career knowledge as an objective of the Guidance and counselling programme in secondary schools. Simple random sampling technique was used to select 1,320 students and 43 guidance counsellors from public and private secondary schools in five local government areas of Oyo State. Three validated instruments were used to collect data from the participants. The data collected were analysed using descriptive statistics, chi square and t-test. It was found that 77% of the Guidance counsellors knew that career knowledge was one of the objectives of Guidance and counselling programme. It revealed that there was significant difference in the career knowledge of schools with Guidance Counsellors and schools without (P<0.0f). Approximately 71 % of students in private schools had moderate career knowledge, and 9.9 had high career knowledge, while 56.3 had moderate and 27.6 had high career knowledge in public schools. It was suggested that career album, career knowledge inventories be provided to the students, while career counselling should be systematically given to the students.

Keywords: Career knowledge of students, career counselling, objective of Guidance and counselling programme