Career Choices of Students in Senior High Schools in Ghana

Abstract

Deciding on the educational path to pursue to arrive at one’s preferred career destination is important. Based on a survey that adapted Germeijs and Verschueren’s (2006) Study Choice Task Inventory (SCTI) to gather relevant data from 1,006 senior high school student respondents, this research assesses the decisional process of how senior high school students choose programmes of study in higher institutions and explores the career guidance and counselling services senior high schools in Ghana provide for their students. Our findings showed that high school students in Ghana were well-oriented about the study choice task and quite decided about the programmes of study to pursue in higher education. The study also found that senior high schools lack the career guidance and counselling infrastructure needed to support students in their efforts to make informed educational career decisions. Also, to a large extent, students relied on themselves for information as they consider the options available in their choices of programmes to study in higher education.

Keywords: Career choice, high school students, Ghana, guidance and counselling, decisional tasks

DOI: 10.7176/JEP/12-10-10

Publication date: April 30^th 2021