Secondary school teachers have been asked to closely guide students who score top grades while choosing university courses since they get confused on the basis of qualifying for nearly all courses.
According to the Kenya Universities and Colleges Central Placement Service (KUCCPS), A-students have a wide field to choose from, something that is likely to give the star performers a hard time and make career-limiting steps.
Dr Agenes Mercy Wahome, the KUCCPS chief executive, says the Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education (KCSE) stars were likely to make the wrong move while choosing their favourite courses.
“The students who get A and A-minus basically can sit for any programme. They can do sciences, they can do arts, you know just basically everything,” Dr Wahome said at Kirinyaga University during a careers day on March 30. According to Dr Wahome, those who score C+ or B- (minus) “are very clear” they want to become a teacher, a nurse or join other professions, benefiting from a shorter list.
She told teachers to closely work with the top performers and guide them to certain university programmes based on passion, excellence, and strength. The official made the call at a time she has incessantly urged schools to embrace the so-called centre application where the Form Four candidates pick courses using internal exam results before sitting their KCSE tests.
Unfortunately, centre application has been low-key with the majority of the Form Four leavers picking their courses during the KUCCPS revision after the exam results are out. Indeed, the placement agency has been under a lot of pressure to open the portal for applications and revision from those who sat the last Form Four national exam.
More Kenyan learners who qualify for university programmes are instead opting for diploma or certificate programmes in their quest to pursue careers in which they have passion, they know are well-paying or mirror the future of work where the limited job opportunities have pushed people to be their own bosses through business or the gig economy.
Guiding students to pick certain courses has also been faulted where the affected people complain that parents and teachers push them into programmes based on academic grades and “marketability” as opposed to interest, passion, and thinking outside the box.
However, teachers, thanks to staying with the learners longer than any other person, are in a better position to tell where the chips will fall after their students complete their university or college programmes and join the world of work.
With mounting parental, peer, and relative pressures, students are more likely to make wrong career decisions without any proper guidance and thought.
Open discussions with students are likely to serve as trigger points for careers and possible streams that students can opt for once in Form Four.
Thanks to competence-based curriculum (CBC), learners, parents and teachers will have a chance to identify talents earlier, giving them adequate preparation for careers.
According to the Kenya National Bureau of Statistics (KNBS) data covering the quarter up to last December, 2.97 million Kenyans aged between 15 and 64 years are jobless and 67 percent of them are giving job search a wide berth.
editor@aplain.co.ke
