CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
The final school years are critical in the career decision-making process of a student, as this is
when students typically begin to plan, explore and make decisions about employment or further
education. Explicating developmental tasks such as planning, exploring, and deciding, processes
of readiness for career choices are all important processes in the lives of secondary school
students in their final year. Career choice readiness means the level of maturity of a person to
make realistic career choices. This means that people below a certain threshold of readiness lack
the life experiences and personal inclinations needed to make fitting occupational choices. Such
group of people require, support that can help them to develop the decisional attitudes and learn
the choice concepts that sustain realistic career planning. This development process consists of
intervention methods that create career development inventories in a person.
A career-ready person effectively navigates pathways that connect education and employment to
achieve a fulfilling, financially-secure and successful career. A career is more than just a job.
Career choice readiness has no defined endpoint. To be career ready in the ever-changing global
economy requires adaptability and a commitment to lifelong learning, along with mastery of key
knowledge, skills and dispositions that vary from one career to another and change over time as a
person progresses along a developmental continuum. Inter-dependent and mutually reinforcing
Knowledge, skills and dispositions are important elements of a career choice readiness. These
include academic and technical knowledge and skills and employability knowledge, skills and
dispositions. There is an often-confusing mix of definitions, frameworks, policies and
implementation strategies for career choice readiness. Some viewpoints center on learning skills
for a specific entry-level job, while others define career choice readiness as a broader
understanding of workplace skills. Still other definitions focus on knowledge and skills for a
particular industry sector such as health sciences or marketing. Career choice readiness is a
convergence of all of these definitions.
A career-ready person should have a good understanding of their interests, talents and
weaknesses and a solid grasp of the skills and dispositions necessary for engaging in todays fast-

paced, global economy. These include, but are not limited to goal setting and planning, managing
transitions from school to work and back again, and from one occupation along a career pathway
to another, clear and effective communication skills, critical thinking and problem solving,
working productively in teams and independently, effective use of technology; and ethical
decision-making and social responsibility. These academic and employability knowledge, skills
and dispositions are acquired in a range of secondary, postsecondary and workplace settings, and
help to address an increasing reality: Today, most career pathways require some form of
postsecondary education, whether its an entry-level job, a management position for a mid-career
professional or perhaps even a shift from practicing a profession to teaching others.
A particular job might require a certificate, a two-year degree, a four-year degree, a doctorate or
even a handful of courses to hone in on a particular piece of knowledge or a skill. Indeed, the
college and career tagline that has become part of the education reform rhetoric encompasses
all of these postsecondary options. Career readiness also incorporates engaging workplace
experiences that allow a person to apply academic and technical learning to real-world projects
and problems alongside professionals. This starts with career awareness and exploration and
includes job shadowing, internships, apprenticeships and service learning.
A career-ready person is proficient in the core academic subjects, as well as in technical topics.
This foundational knowledge base includes competence in a broad range of academic subjects
grounded in rigorous internationally benchmarked state standards such as the Common Core
State Standards for English language arts and mathematics. It also includes a level of technicalskill proficiency aligned to a chosen career field and pathway, and the ability to apply both
academic and technical learning in the context of a career. Many careers also require deeper
learning and mastery in specific academic or technical subjects.
Career choice readiness is an important decision making stage that a person needs to achieve
especially secondary school students. A student who is ready for a career choice has developed
the required ability, interest, aspirations and the career options path ready for future employment
career. Successful career choices enable a country to generate labour motivated resource
technically and professionally. Research shows that working in an occupation which is congruent

with ones own interests can lead to more satisfaction and success in work (Spokane, Meir, &
Catalano, 2000). There are many areas that face frequent shortages of labour supply and at the
same time, some professional fields are flooded with qualified job seekers. Also there are people
at third or fourth generations are still in the occupations of their forefathers. This has always
resulted in mismatch of employment opportunities as the labour market struggle to eliminate this
gap and can result into demoralized, unskilled yet well trained labour force leading to poor
productivity.
The contemporary generation of secondary school students has multiple career options available,
and various factors influences add complexity to the career decision-making process. This
provides a hard task in the process of career choice readiness among secondary school students.
Career choice has become a complex science with the advent of information technology, the
emergence of post industrial revolution and job competition. It was a common practice in the old
days to find feudalism converting it into a family affair where the son of a blacksmith was
destined to become a blacksmith and a feudal was born a leader. Industrialization and post
industrialization has made it possible for a common person to be richer as long as she or he has
due skills and knowledge (Wattles, 2009). So career choice is a critical practice that can open the
doors of successes or close the doors of opportunities hence a proper decision must be made to
select the right career that matches the skills, talent and ability of the chooser. It would neither
make nor mar ones joy and happiness since true joy, happiness and satisfaction are linked to
proper career choices made. Career choice is an exercise taken at secondary school mostly. At
this stage in life, students is most likely at adolescent stage, which is critically complex in
making proper and correct decision in matters of life.
The career choice readiness development tasks must be congruent, consistent, coherent, and
differentiated for one to be ready to plan, explore and decide on a career choice. The degree of fit
between an environment and personal characteristics is important to be ready for career decision
making. According to Holland (1997) working in an environment which is congruent to ones
personal characteristics should result in beneficial outcomes such as tenure in the organization
and satisfaction with work. Research to support this assertion is not always consistent (Tinsley,
2000) although there is some strong evidence to support these claims (Spokane et al., 2000). In

the present study congruence refers to the degree of similarity between a clients career
aspirations and his interest test profile. This can also be considered as a measure of the similarity
between clientss expressed and measured interests.
Consistency is a measure for the similarity of the first two RIASEC types of a persons test
profile. Since Hollands model places the six interest types on a hexagonal structure, for
example, Realistic and Investigative types are considered to be more consistent than Realistic
and Enterprising types. Coherence of vocational aspirations, recently also termed Vocational
Aspiration Consistency by Holland (1997), refers to the similarity of a persons different career
aspirations (measured in terms of the RIASEC model). Differentiation is a measure of the level
of definition or distinctness of a persons test profile. Elevation refers to the overall level of the
interest profile as having generally high or low values for the different types.
Career readiness also requires a comprehensive system of supports that deliver learning when it
is needed, where it is needed, how it is needed and by a cadre of experts that includes teachers
and career professionals. It includes both classroom and workplace experiences, high-quality
standards and instructional materials to support learning, a portfolio of assessments that gauge
progress using multiple measures along a continuum from being not at all career ready to fully
career ready, and finally a policy and funding structure that is aligned across secondary school
students, higher education and business and industry sectors. No one group or individual can
realize change of this magnitude; however, uniting around a common goal is a powerful catalyst
for change.
In the United States of America, increasingly, there is evidence of a mismatch between employer
needs and the knowledge and skills of the current and future workforce, on display in
employment figures and reports from business and industry leaders. This has forced the United
States, which was once a powerhouse, to trail many nations in achievement and attainment in
secondary and postsecondary learning and occupation decisions. This could be attributed to the
fact that high school graduates throughout the United States face a fork in the road for a long
time now. One path led to a four-year college, the other to an entry-level job. Some students
chose for themselves, while others were tracked based on aptitude and, all too often, on race and

income. Effort to guide students to choose and prepare in trades they are studying in order to be
economically productive dates back to 1885 when George Merill started the first systematic work
in guidance in the USA Detroit, USA, required his 7th grade students to write a weekly report on
occupational interest that would influence their choice of career for their English class so that
they could be helped in order not to make mistakes that would affect their lives (Zunker, 2002).
In his book Choosing a Vocation, published in 1909, Frank Parson provided a conceptual
framework for helping an individual to select a career. This framework is used by vocational
and/or career counsellors in assisting people to choose their career, an indication that helping
people to make appropriate career choice is something that has been there in Europe and the
USA since the days of the career education movement (Zunker, 2002). The industrial revolution
in Europe and the technological breakthrough in Russia in the 1957 which led to the launch of
the Sputnik 1 forced many Western Countries, to take a new look at vocational guidance in
schools (Taylor and Buku, 2006).
In todays 21st century global economy, the choices are much more complex and interconnected,
and the fork in the road has been replaced by numerous paths, all of which require a rigorous and
rich high school experience that prepares all students not just some for college and a career. For
too many American students, high school is a time of disengagement that fails to put them on a
path to college and career success. Many of secondary students in America are not meaningfully
engaged or motivated in their academic experience while in high school. They graduates lack
exposure to learning that links their work in school to college and careers especially in the
critically important fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
In Africa, available literature shows that formal vocational guidance was given to final year
students in Nigeria in 1957 (Makinde,1983 cited in Taylor and Buku, 2006). A study in career
choice in Ethiopia by Stebleton (2007), indicated that the student had an internal locus of control
and believes that there are numerous external factors which influence their career choice.
According to Onyamo and Amoth (2008), studies in Kenya show that rural students tend to seek
help from parents more than urban students and that parents more than teachers and career
counsellors play a major role in the career choice of students. Asante (2010) was of the view that
determinants of career preference and decision making of technical education students in Accra,

was that 62% of students who choose technical education and select a career in that field have
family influence being the major factor that influence their decision and choice. Asante (2010)
went further to state that the determining factors include personal interest, job opportunities,
income and the school guidance department.
Young people all over the world have high ambitions, expecting to be highly educated and have
professional careers, yet research has shown that many do not develop coherent plans that will
help them choose a befitting career that matches their abilities, values, and the opportunities
available for achieving this goals (Schneider & Stevenson, 1999). Career choices are influenced
and are determined by one factor or multiples of factors. According to Kerka (2000), career
choice is influenced by multiple factors including personality, interests, self concept, cultural
identity, globalization, socialization, role model, social support and available resources such as
information and finance. Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara, & Pastorelli, (2001) provides a
thoughtful scenario that each individual going through career decision process is confronted with
choice making and is influenced by several factors including the context or environment in
which they live, their personal aptitudes, social contacts and educational attainment as well as the
individuals self efficacy. Career choices is influenced by parental form and from intrinsic or
extrinsic or both (Hewitt, 2010). Taylor and Buku (2006), gave their version as intellectual
ability, aptitudes, influence of schooling, family, personality, self-concept, sex difference, values,
prestige, remuneration, risk factors, security, satisfaction, needs and interest (Taylor and Buku
2006).
The Genesis to career choice according to Taylor and Buku (2006) in the Ghanaian educational
reforms for SHS students require that students choose the programme they will offer at the SHS
when they are in the final year of the Junior High School. The career most students choose
usually begins from the programme of study they opt for and pursue upon entry into the SHS.
These programmes determine to a large extent, which courses he/she can pursue in the
University or other higher institutions of learning as well as where ones future career destination
will be.
Students are therefore challenged as to which courses their SHS programme will enable them
pursue, especially in the University and where such courses will lead them to in terms of career

opportunities since students childhood careers are influence by their childhood career fantasies,
instincts and friends but may not consider those determinants of career choice as Kerka (2000),
Bandura, Barbaranelli, Caprara and Pastorelli, (2001), Taylor and Buku, (2006), Wattles, (2009)
and Hewitt (2010), have mentioned. Students do not get enough career guidance that influences
the taking of wise and reasonable career decision concerning their future career.
In their bid to choose a reputable career it is required that students acquire advanced learning
skills and self management competencies at school so as to develop their own career and in
learning throughout their lifetime (Gysbers & Henderson, 2005; Jarvis & Keeley, 2003).
Although academic and technical qualifications open doors for employment, career
competencies and lifelong learning skills (intellectual ability) largely determine selection,
success and advancement in individual careers (Krumboltz & Worthington, 1999; Worthington &
Juntunen, 1997). These competencies or skills should be taught in schools, since many students
leave education without the necessary skills to succeed in the adult work world (e.g., Jarvis
Keeley, 2003; Zinser, 2003). Schools are thus seen as career centres in which students are able
to acquire career competencies, such as being able to reflect on personal ambitions and motives,
and to undertake actions and initiatives to direct their own career choice and development by
critically evaluating those factors that determine their choice of career (Geurts, 2003; Kuijpers &
Meijers, 2009). It is based on this that the role of the counsellor becomes imperative. The school
counsellors role in career guidance and/or counselling as well as academic counselling can
provide students with the obligatory tools to set career goals, and give them an understanding of
the education and skills they need to choose a career that meet their life goals, stay in it, grow
and develop in it.
The SHS students in the Agona municipality due to lack of or inadequate career counselling, see
themselves as becoming taxi drivers, store/shop or filling station attendants. Majority of the boys
who should have been in post-secondary institution, engage in cyber fraud popularly known as
Sakawa and other indecent life styles and activities which are not influenced by school
activities. Whether they were given enough counselling as to the career they enter after mind
bogging experience that they do, do not match their ability, personal values, interest, satisfaction

and others. The study therefore is to explore determination factors that influence SHS students in
Ghana especially those in the Agona West Municipality make desired career choices at school.
In order to be successful in this endeavor, they need to amass knowledge about the world of
work in general and about vocational pathways of their interest in particular. Gathering this
career-relevant knowledge is usually referred to as career exploration and can be seen as a
typical example() of positive career choice readiness attitudes according to Hirschi (2007,
p.207). Osipow (1999) and Hirschi (2011) stress that lack of occupational information is, among
others (such as lack of self-knowledge or external barriers), one important potential source of a
persons incapacity to make career decisions, and this can be addressed by intensifying career
exploration. At the same time the decision-making process is influenced by personal
characteristics of the adolescent in the orientation phase. Creed et al. (2005) discovered that low
self-esteem and life satisfaction are related to career indecision in students. While they
interpreted their findings in the direction that self-esteem results from the decisional state, one
could, along with Hirschi (2011), also presume, that students low in self-esteem have difficulties
in deciding for a career, which might result from reduced career exploration.
As the readiness to make career decisions depends on the amount of occupational information
available to a person and as students with a low readiness for career decisions show lowered selfesteem (Hirschi, 2011), one can assume that students low in self-esteem are undecided, because
they possess not enough career information to form a decision and that this might result from a
lesser engagement in career exploration. Another reason why adolescents low in self-esteem
might not engage in extensive career exploration can be derived from Super et al. (1990), who
postulate that individuals low in self-esteem do not try to implement their self-concept in the
vocation they choose as much as those high in self-esteem, which was supported empirically by
Korman (1966). It seems likely that students low in self-esteem is less motivated to put much
effort into working out which potential careers match their interests. Research now needs to
examine whether students low in self-esteem actually show less career exploration than their
peers high in self-esteem. This should be especially true for exploring information sources that
are not easily accessible, since Ellis and Taylor (1983) argued for the case of job seekers that
individuals low in self-esteem searching a job would rather resort to sources not requiring social

skill and initiative. I therefore expect students low in self-esteem to a) feel less prepared for
career decisions and b) rely to a lesser degree on career exploration than students high in selfesteem and that these differences will be greatest for information sources requiring social
interaction.