Dynamic Analysis of Educational Attainment, Career Choice and Unemployment in Kenya

Abstract

Despite transformations of the higher education system over the last decades, there has been increase in the enrollment to the low prospective by large proportion of the students. Consequently, this significantly reduces skills in the country. Therefore, the choice of career by students greatly affect the ultimate profession. This study sought to find out the role of the level of education and course of study impact on the chances of getting employed in Kenya. Secondly, the study sought to determine the factors that affect career choice among university graduates. Using a multinomial logit model, the choice of career was found to be mainly dependent on factors such as skills development, gender, age, age Squared, education level, place of residence, marital status, parental advisory and school type. Further, the study findings showed that having primary and secondary education reduces the log likelihood odd ratio of getting employment while having college and undergraduate education was associated with significant reduction in the log likelihood of getting employment. Career chosen was also found to have a significant effect on employment. This study proposes that it is time that students should be encouraged to undertake other technical skills in order to increase the chances of getting employed in Kenya. Moreover, there is need to encourage the graduates not to seek for jobs in the urban areas but also shift focus on rural areas especially with the eve of devolution. Finally, there is need for students to put focus on these areas of study unlike formerly when the focus was mainly skewed to courses such as accounting and engineering. In conclusion, the study proposes a further study to carried out on the role curriculum and change on curriculum on employment comparing developed and developing nations.