Career guidance gaps may have caused the failure of over 500,000 students to seek Post-Secondary Education during the 2023/2024 Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS) placement report.
According to the Career Development Association of Kenya (CDAK) Board Chairperson Margaret Waithaka the situation is not news to career guidance practitioners.
“Secondary education is part of basic education in Kenya and its purpose is to prepare students for post-secondary education.
Failure to proceed to post-secondary education is considered an early school leaver and has its own implications,” said Waithaka in a statement.
She added: “Such students risk being employed as untrained or unskilled worker with poor pay, risk getting into criminal activities, starting family early and rob the economy youth energy and skills.”
However, CDAK has outlined a number of measures that the government through the Ministry of Education can adopt in avoiding cases of poor transition in post-secondary education.
According to the Association’s Board Chairperson Margaret Waithaka, there should be strategies of supporting students towards academic success.
The strategies may include study skills where students are encouraged to set goals, create a good learning environment, minimize distractions, plan and organize their time, do research, develop and assess one’s understanding of their subjects, track progress, and ask for help when needed, encourage students to change their attitudes, build self-confidence, believe they can do it, as well as their ability to apply themselves and build resilience.
Post-secondary education is any education leading to an award in degree, diploma, certificate or artisan certificate from a university, national polytechnic, technical training institute, vocational training centres, medical colleges, music and nursing schools, teachers training college, sports academies and the list goes on.
“As the association of career guidance and development practitioners, we propose intentional inclusion of career guidance services through development of career guidance policy frameworks to provide guidelines and standards; creation of careers department in primary, secondary, colleges and universities; professional training for career guidance teachers and/or practitioners in charge of these departments; and embedment of career guidance in teacher education training,” she stated.
By Roy Hezron
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