Parents’ Role in Career Guidance among Secondary School Students in Kikuyu Sub-County: A Case of Kiambu County - Kenya

Abstract

Parents invest heavily in their children’s education with career success as the desired outcome. Since the students’ decision making ability is still developing, they need guidance from adults such as parents and teachers when making career decisions. The objectives of the study were to identify parent engagement strategies used in career guidance, assess parents’ level of participation in career guidance programs, analyze parents’ attitudes towards involvement in career guidance and examine counselling interventions that could enhance career guidance by parents in secondary schools in Kikuyu Sub-County. The theoretical framework included Career Development and Social Cognitive Theories. The study involved mixed methods of social inquiry under a descriptive research design. Data collection methods used included questionnaire, focus group discussions and interview schedules. A sample of 207 parents was chosen from form three parents of the 17 secondary schools in Kikuyu Sub-County using stratified random sampling method. Data was also collected from 17 principals and 17 career counselors for triangulation. Quantitative data were analyzed descriptively with the findings presented in the form of frequencies and percentages while qualitative findings were analysed thematically and presented in verbatim. The study established that circulars (65.2%) and newsletters (64.7%) were the most common methods used while career days / expos (55.1%) and parents meetings (79.7%) were the most common interactive programs offered by secondary schools in Kikuyu Sub-County to assist parents in providing career guidance to their children. The parents agreed that the information provided by the career counselors and the interactive sessions/events offered by the schools were useful in assisting them in providing career guidance to their children as indicated by mean values of 4.26 and 4.11 respectively. The study also established that most (84%) of the parents of Form 3 students in secondary schools in Kikuyu Sub-County did attend career guidance programs to be informed and equipped as parents. One-on-one counseling and group counseling were the two major types of counseling offered to the parents to assist them in providing career guidance to their children. The parents shared the view that, as a result of their counseling on career guidance, they had acquired greater appreciation of the significant role that parents had on the career choices of their children and were able to learn on how best to guide their children about career choices. The study concluded that there was a fair level of participation of parents in career guidance in secondary schools in Kikuyu Sub-County as most of the parents attended the career guidance programs/events with a view of being informed and equipped. In addition, most of the parents had a positive attitude towards their involvement in career guidance and an array of interventions could be adopted to help improve the effectiveness of career guidance by parents in secondary schools in Kikuyu Sub-County. The study recommended that there is need for awareness creation among parents of secondary school students in the country, in general, on their significant role in the career guidance of the students.