Relationship between School Type and Secondary School Students' Career Aspirations in Nairobi County, Kenya

Abstract

This study purposed to investigate how school type was related to career aspirations of secondary school students. Students are admitted into different school types based on the criteria of their marks in KCPE (Kenya Certificate of Primary Education). A lot of stereotyping on "school labels” does exist. National schools produce the best KCSE (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education) grades apparently making them institutions of fame and prestige. Next in the rank after national schools is extra county schools and at the bottom are sub county schools or district schools (popularly called day schools-producing the bulk of the poor grades). The effect of such glaring academic performance gaps is that most students in the last bottom category miss qualification to prestigious professional careers. The categorization of schools and their academic performance gaps (well known to students) could affect one's self-realization, influencing self-esteem, academic achievement and career aspirations of students. Self-concept theory by Carl Rogers and Social Cognitive theory by Albert Bandura guided this study. The study employed correlational research design. Questionnaires were administered to provide quantitative data using a sample of 480 form 4 students drawn from 12 public secondary school in Nairobi County. The 12 public secondary schools were drawn using cluster and purposive sampling. Each school provided 40 students stream using simple random sampling. One Way analysis of Variance (ANOVA) and Chi-Square test statistics was used to establish differences between school type and students career aspirations. ANOVA also tested career aspirations differences for boys and girls by school type. The level of significance in rejecting the null hypothesis was at p ≤ .05. The study found a significant relationship between school type and career aspirations of students (f (3, 447) =14.69, p = .00). There was also a relationship between students' gender and career aspirations. Most schools from national and extra county schools aspired for higher professional careers compared to majority of sub-county students who aspired for low-level careers. There were more males in realistic and enterprising careers than females while females were majority in investigative, artistic and social careers. It was recommended the need to enhance career guidance and establish self-esteem enhancement programmes, equipped with personnel with requisite skills, more so in sub-county schools. There was also need to expand non-academic opportunities of training to cater for the rising number of sub-county school students.