By Emma Akpabio
Independent survey has revealed that over 80% of secondary school students in exit-classes opt for a wrong career path due to lack of career guidance.
More shocking is the reality that despite acquiring higher education, majority of the National youth corp members are not sure about what career is best for them.
No research is needed to verify the reality that over 90% of Nigeria’s secondary institutions exist without professional career counselors.
The consequences of this negligence is that most youngsters totally submit to their parental desires while others due to peer influence, end up choosing the wrong field which often ends in regrets.
Last weekend, I interviewed this amazing child, Raphael, who aspires to be an Engineer. When I questioned him on why he wants to be an Engineer, he was totally clueless. The only reason he gave was that his parents want him to be an Engineer because it is a respectable profession. He was not aware of practical work nor different fields of engineering.
From 2006, when I started worshipping in a Church located inside a university campus, up until last year, when I gained full affiliation with a tertiary institution somewhere in Akwa Ibom north-west region, one undisputed discovery has been that many students settle for alternative courses because of lack of patience for their ultimate and original desires.
Within the year under discourse, I have seen students who settled for Physiology because they couldn’t gain admission to study their desired Medicine and Surgery.
I have also seen others who applied to study Law but ended up as graduates of either Philosophy or History and International studies. Similar examples are too numerous to mention.
The truth remains that over 80% of these students who either take up alternative courses or are being assigned alternative courses by institutions, have very little or no passion and commitment to those assigned courses.
To these categories of students, their main aim is to be called graduates and subsequently, corp members, without intentions to practice what they studied for 4 years or more. Such are the ones who inflate the country’s unemployment rate.
With the experience I had with Raphael over the weekend, It’s absolutely shocking that in the 21st century, the only courses still known to our secondary school leavers are limited to Law, Medicine/surgery, Engineering and a few others.
With the vast amount of career options today, career development has become increasingly important for exploring career interests and possibilities. It is essential that students receive career counselling in school so that they are prepared for life after high school and the transition into adulthood and the workforce.
With all that has been said, it suffices then to postulate that some youths are not actually unemployed but absolutely unemployable. This is because some applicants or job-seekers lack the indepth knowledge of what they studied in school.
To forestall this societal anomalies, government at all levels must employ the services of counsellors in public schools and make it compulsory in all private academic institutions at all levels.
Lack of career counselling in Nigeria academic institutions, remain one neglected agent of unemployment. Students must be guided by professionals on career choice in a bid to correct the imbalances we find in the various fields.
