Proceedings of the 12th International Conference on Research in Behavioral and Social Sciences
Year: 2024
DOI:
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Is The Lack of Career Guidance in High Schools a Contributor to The High Unemployment Rate?
Bright Smith
ABSTRACT:
There is a growing concern in South Africa about the increasing levels of unemployment and unemployed graduates. While this can be attributed to socio economic and socio-political conditions, it can also be linked to the curriculum that is put in place to guide teachers on the information that they should provide to learners in high schools and career guidance over the years in their curriculum. Taking into consideration the lack of career guidance that would have helped learners to choose careers that would create employment opportunities, this paper poses this question: Is the lack of career guidance in high schools a contributing factor to unemployment rate in South Africa. This paper argues that a lack of career guidance is a contributor to growing levels of unemployment in South Africa. Although this is the case, there are a number of schools that still do not have access to adequate career guidance and as a result, learners end up in careers that are not suitable for them. The article focuses on the experiences of rural high school learners and how they go about in making career choices, considering all the changes that are taking place especially in the workplace. Consequently, a qualitative study was done to report on these experiences of high school learners, the study was based on ten high school matriculants and two teachers. The findings revealed that several schools in rural areas do not have career guidance and end up using the information they get from parents, friends, or the internet to make career choices. This study highlights the need for career guidance in rural high schools in order to combat social issues such as increasing unemployment rate. Through sufficient career guidance, learners would end up in studying towards careers that are in demand and may afford them with employment once having completed their studies.
keywords: curriculum; employment; learners; rural high schools; social issues