Influence of Academic Achievement Perception on Choice of Training Programmes in Public Secondary Schools in Kenya.

Abstract

The choice of a career is very important because it affects one’s entire life. To enable students make this crucial decision, career guidance is offered in secondary schools in Kenya to help the students realise their potential, develop their abilities and select training programmes they want to pursue after secondary school consequently leading to appropriate careers. Through career guidance, secondary school students are assisted to comprehend their academic achievements and identify training programmes and careers that they qualify for to ensure suitable selection. Yet there are many students who fail to qualify for the training programmes they had chosen. While others try to change the training programmes they had chosen immediately after admission or after a period of study in the university, indicating a dissatisfying choice. This study was carried out to establish the perceptions of students and career counsellors about the influence of academic achievement on the choice of training programmes in public secondary schools in selected counties of Kenya.  The study employed a descriptive survey research design. The study areas were Mombasa, Meru and Kiambu counties of Kenya. The target population was 31,145 form four students in 394 public secondary schools. Multistage sampling procedure was used to select a sample of 395 students from 33 schools.  In addition 33 career counsellors were purposively sampled. The data was collected using two questionnaires and was analysed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). Descriptive and inferential statistics (mean and percentages) were used in data analysis. The findings of the study were that academic achievement was perceived to influence the choice of training programmes.