CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the study Career development for most people is a life long process of engaging the work world through choosing among career choices made available to them.

Paslorelli, [2001] stressed that individuals undertaking the process is influenced by many factors, including the context in which they live their personal aptitudes , and educational attainment .

Rapid changes in information and communication technologies, increasing globalization and greater competition are contributing to dramatic change in working life, which do not have anything to do with an individual career, the concept of a job for life is no longer a reality. Young people are now looking for work life balance in their lives. They want to maintain the best balance between the hours they spent in paid work and the time devoted to other roles in their lives such as leisure, home and family life. Gordon (1997) stressed on the significance of early, career interaction in secondary school. She added that three are a lot of concern about personal counseling but much less concern are paid to helping students to the process of making vocationally choices. According to Hansen, (1996) everyone seems to have a story to tell regarding their career paths. For instance an adult is ask about their career development, the answer will be that he just get into that job or he was in the right place at the right time or he wanted to engage the other job before I change my mind to join the other job. However it is worthy of note to state that it is easy to elicit an answer from a group of enthusiastic children when asked what they want to become when they group up, through if similar question is posed to secondary school students, some will carefully provide an answer, while others may say, that they were not yet sure of what to be in future. Hayes, (1997) stressed that the uncertainty of career choice confusion among the secondary school students remains a constant challenge therefore it would be seem natural that an important component of early career development intervention during those exploratory and transitional stages would be fully investigated to determine those factors that determined the choice of a career among secondary school students. The American counseling association. ( ACA) 1998 stated the importance of secondary school students been preferred for the world of work as they enter a period of transition from secondary school career guidance programme should be based in assisting the students in career choice. Heir(1995) added that secondary school students are really influenced by external forces. It was also suggested by the counselors that there are internal factors such as personal identity, self esteem, decision making, style, as well as the development tasks to be accomplished. Hartung, ( 1995) stressed on the importance of both early instructions and the continued efforts in the career choice, the point here is not for the secondary school students to only make a decision a particular job they would like to join after schooling, but it is to fully participate in a process that would assist in preparing a foundation that could promote bright future. Kapes(1998) presents the steps or stages of introducing career choice which he summed up as follows, introducing career awareness activities in elementary grades, career exploration in middle grade and career preparation in secondary schools. Since choosing a career has an important role to play is ones life, there are needs to encompass the processes involved in better choice of career in secondary schools to enable the secondary school students to lay useful foundations for the future.