One of the crossroads in man’s life is when he
is to choose the path he would take after high school. In
other countries, where young men and women have a lot
of options after high school, going to college is not a
choice that the majority seize. It is not only because
college education is very expensive. Another reason is
that they are at least 18 years old when they graduate so
they can already have jobs and live their own lives.
Here in the Philippines, especially since the first
batch of K+12 graduated, high school graduates are
generally younger and though expensive also, college
education especially in state-owned colleges and
universities are relatively cheaper. It is because of these
that more Filipino students and their families opt to, or
at least hope to send their children to college.
Not every high school graduate though gets to
college. Take this survey of the 14-year cycle of this
batch from elementary (1994) to tertiary (2007). 100
pupils enrolled in Grade 1, only 67 students reached first
year high school and 48 of which graduated high school.
Of these high school graduates, only 23 reached college
level and 17 earned college degrees.
This situation makes retaining those in school,
particularly those at risk of falling out of the system one
of the major challenges for the Department of Education
(DepEd). These pupils/students are the ones who
encounter difficult circumstances in life – poverty, cases
of teenage pregnancies, student laborers, children whose
parents were poorly schooled, slum dwellers, families
who live in areas with peace and order problems and
learners with various forms of disabilities - that their
stay in school is so fragile that they face the risk of
falling out, sooner or later.
Seeing the need to arouse their interest towards
learning, or make schooling interesting for them, DepEd
came up with a combination of interventions that will
keep them attending school despite the odds. The most
important of which is the k to12 program –
kindergarten, six years of elementary (Grades 1 to 6),
four years of junior high school (Grades 7 -10) and two
more years of senior high school (Grades 11 and 12).
After having developed basic skills from Grades 1
to 10, a student may proceed to senior high school where
he will take a set of Core Curriculum subjects composed
of Languages, Literature, Math, Philosophy, Science,
and Social Sciences. More importantly, he may choose
from tracks ranging from Business & Entrepreneurship;
Technical-Vocational; Humanities and Social Sciences;
Science, Technology, and Engineering; and Sports
depending on his interest, the community needs, and
assessment results. At present, two things are clear to the
researcher – (1) that the career counselling program in
Paharang Integrated School has to be upgraded to fit the
present needs of the junior high school students, and that
the parents in this school, just like in any other school,
exert influence on their children. The assumption is
that if the parents will be properly guided, they will be
able to have the same kind of guidance to their pupils,
that is, they can better help their children make the right
choices of career path.
In this study, the researcher wants to find out the
extent to which the parents influence the career choices
of their children and how the present career counselling
program of Paharang IS can be improved to make room
for this parental influence.
This research assessed the effectiveness of the
career counselling program of Paharang Integrated
School and the extent of the influence of the parents to
their children’s choice of career path. Specifically, it will
answer the following questions:
How important is the career counseling program of
Paharang Integrated School in helping the students
make the career choice?
To what extent do the parents influence the choice
of career path of their children?
What developmental measures may be
implemented so that the career counseling program of
Paharang Integrated School can cover both students and
parents?