By Akelo Wycliffe
Whenever I meet young people, I always want to know what they want to be in future. Many of them have cited traditional careers like law, engineering and medicine. Some opt for such careers because of parental influence, others are guided by teachers while others simply take admiration from what the society considers ‘success cases’.
Career choice is a very important component for students and thus requisite thought needs to go with it. In fact, evidence from research shows that performance of any individual increases when they engage in what they have interest in and have required capacity for execution.
Both parents and teachers ought to consider interests and abilities of their learners before advising them to settle for careers. There have been cases of students who have been pushed by parents and teachers to take certain courses just for the sake of second or third party interests. This is the reason we have people who have no passion for their jobs.
Students must be assessed to understand their inherent abilities and interests to guide their career choices. It is, for example, much easier for an outspoken character to take up a sales job than for an introvert to unlearn his introversion.
A student who is gifted in crafts must not be pushed to take up a philosophical discipline that is likely to break his head at the height of theories.
Learner interest and ability will ensure a student takes up a career which resonates with him so that at any given time they are free to interact with all that pertains to the career. A sense of ownership and love for the career enables one to go an extra mile which consequently results in accelerated performance.
Forcing children to take up certain career choices has partly been responsible for the many cases of depression and sometimes even suicide. It therefore behooves all care givers to align their career guidance to the learner interests and abilities.
There have always been cases of students dropping courses at the universities when reality finally dawns on them that they lack requisite competencies to take certain disciplines.
In this case, it becomes wasteful to both the student and parent who may have invested so much on the child. It should be emphasized that as a parent, it doesn’t serve well to insist that your child must take after your career. Individual interests, passions and abilities differ significantly thus freedom to pursue career of choice is indispensible.
It is unfortunate that political economy of most developing countries such as Kenya has not created avenue for revamped opportunities for employment. As such, many career choices are guided by anticipated monetary gains through employment opportunities.
A more robust plan needs to be hatched so that career decisions go beyond mere financial incentives. Career choices must be learner-driven so that we can have a workforce that is rejuvenated and passionate. As CBC sets in, much of this over-inclination towards white-collar engagement will begin to fade.
The government ought to be challenged to invest in programmes that create creativity which can pay off. There should be well-structured programmes to cater for diverse interests especially those in creative arts and other SMEs so that our GDP improves. Through such initiatives, it becomes easy for young people to perfect their inherent and acquired skills through various professional outlays.
Akelo is a development expert
