| dc.description.abstract | Career choice is influenced by many factors, including life context, personal aptitudes, and educational attainment. Whether college-bound or work-bound, meeting the challenge of this developmental milestone is critical in youth's lives. Career development, for most people, is a lifelong process of engaging the work world through choosing among employment opportunities made available to them. Each individual undertaking the process is influenced by many factors, including the context in which they live, their personal aptitudes, and educational attainment. A major turning point in youth's lives involves the career choice that they make while in high school.
Frequently, it is viewed by family and community as a mere start to workplace readiness; however, this decision plays a major role in establishing youth in a career path that opens as well as closes opportunities .. The purpose of this study was to investigate the factors influencing career choices among students in public tertiary colleges in Garissa Municipality. Five research questions were formulated to guide the study. The study used Ex-post facto research design. The target population consisted of 355 respondents. Data was gathered by use of questionnaire and was analyzed using qualitative and quantitative data.
Findings revealed that family had influenced them to a great extent as shown. Youth consulted their families since they felt that their families had good plan for them hence could guide them accordingly. The study also concluded that peers influenced the youth in career choice to a great extent. Findings also revealed that the community culture had a role to play in the career choice among the youth. Traditional ascribed roles in terms of gender also determined the choice of careers for the youths. Some cultures on the other hand restricted females to do some kinds of work hence would not allow them apply or join certain careers.
Findings also revealed that access to occupational information influenced youth choices in career. Based on the findings, it was recommended that Parents should not force the youth in taking up careers which are appealing to them but should discuss the options with the youth. It was also recommended that the government through the Ministry of Education should put mechanism in place to provide regular career guidance and counseling to school. There is need for the govemment to provide more resources in terms of provision of information so the youth in which ever area they are can access career information lastly schools should introduce career guidance in their schools and enhance the already existing ones.
Taking the limitations and delimitations of the study it was suggested that a study on the role of career teacher counselors in career guidance and counseling in schools and colleges should be conducted A study on the effects of career guidance and counseling on students' choice of career should be conducted. There should be a study conducted on student's perception on career guidance and counseling services in schools and colleges and lastly a study on the extent of parental involvement in career guidance programmes in Kenyan schools and colleges. | en_US |
