The effect of a career guidance training programme on volunteer trainees

M.A.There is a serious need for effective career guidance programmes in schools. Most of the research point out that the need is more evident in African schools. This can be linked to the high school dropout rate, resulting in unemployment and a low quality of life in some sectors of the population. Other factors like poverty and parents’ socio -economic status plays a part. This study sees the school as the most important setting and environment that is responsible for developing and promoting quality career development programmes that will produce learners that are going to be self-reliant in life. For such programmes to address the needs of the learners, they should be developmental in nature. Some of the characteristics of a developmental career development programme are that it takes all children in the school into consideration. It also has a preventative emphasis. The study raises concerns about the nature of career development in schools and whether their programmes are developmental in nature. The training of the guidance counsellors, as they are responsible for programme development, is also an issue. The study therefore describes at length a developmental career guidance programme, its characteristics, principles on which it is based and implementation. The psycho-education model is seen as a proper vehicle for training and for enhancing the skills of the guidance counsellors. A training manual in career development was developed as an intervention process in this study. Ten teachers who were firstly interviewed to assess their level of knowledge and training on career development were trained using this manual. The teachers were then interviewed, and gave a descriptive account of the knowledge acquired from the training. The results are discussed with reference to the theory and literature that are put forward in this study. The evaluation of the intervention of the study, which was the training manual, was positive. The teachers described it as helpful and easy to apply