‘Young persons must be given career education’

The International Operations Manager of Future Careers Ghana (FCG), an NGO, Mr Papi-Paulo Zigah, says young people must be given access to career education to help them make informed career choices.

According to him, career education comes in three different forms; guidance, planning and development which he said was fundamental and must be provided in high schools in order to guide young people in making the right choices.

“Career guidance is supposed to start at the age of 12 or when a child enters high school. Without guidance from the age of 12, the child will be influenced mainly by friends because peer pressure is more effective at that stage,” he said in an interview with the Ghanaian Times in Accra yesterday.

He announced that Future Careers Ghana had rolled out free career guidance for some public and private schools in Tema on the need to make the right choices on courses to study.

He emphasised that children between the age of 10 to 12 years, went through a lot of changes at adolescent stage and that the external challenges that came with their growth was a recipe for chaos without guidance.

“Without that I can assure you most children will make wrong choices, most will end up in careers that are redundant or will probably not get into any opportunities at all,” he added.

Mr Zigah revealed that his firm was embarking on a tour to schools within the Tema and Ashaiman Municipality to introduce the career plan package, a complete career education solution to provide students with career guidance and opportunities.

“When you think about career plan, think about accessibility in terms of career education making it accessible for every young person to have a dedicated guidance officer to approach when in doubt.

Young people have a myriad of problems so the need to have access to a dedicated guidance officer in order to discuss issues they can’t share with their parents who can offer more than giving career advice as they sometimes provide general counselling in terms of helping a young person go through grieving situations,” he stated.

To correct this, he said Future Careers Ghana would engage the various District Directors of Education in the Tema Metropolitan, Tema West and Kpone Katamanso municipalities to address issues on career guidance and planning.

BY LINUS SIAW NARTEY