Tertiary students' perceptions of secondary school career guidance : a consumer perspective.

Abstract

The aim of this study was to focus on tertiary students' perceptions of career education which they received at secondary school level. It will try to determine the extent to which the role of the guidance teacher is known and also determine whether guidance as an auxiliary service is considered helpful by students. The,:sample consists of 92 male and female respondents drawn from the university and the technikon in Pietermaritzburg. The measuring instrument used is the questionnaire constructed by Skuy et al (1985) revised by Haffajee (1991) but included a number of questions were devised by the author to address the needs of her study. As a number of the questions in the questionnaire were constructed by the author, it was realised when analyzing the questionnaire that questions on parental influence were not included. Therefore, the results of this study must be interpreted with caution. The results of this study indicate that students received inadequate exposure to career guidance at school. This is linked to the fact that most of the guidance teachers themselves did not have adequate training in guidance and career guidance. The guidance periods were also used for examination subjects and also used by students as self-study or free periods. It is also indicated that most students changed their secondary school choice because the career assistance received at school was not adequate. Visits to tertiary institutions by pupils were " found helpful as it helps one in career decision-making. The results of this study indicate that guidance and career guidance should be enforced at school as this will help students to make responsible career choices. If career guidance is made compulsory at school, students will realize that uninformed career decisions made can be costly in time and in money. The results of this study also suggest that friends and guidance teachers are considered to be the most important helping agents in relation to career choice. The parents are found to have had little influence on their childrens' career choices in this study.1t is also indicated in the results of this study that environmental influences affected the respondents career knowledge. Since some limitations of this study were found, these results must be interpreted with caution and one should be cautious in applying them to a wider population.