PROPOSAL

TITLE:

Career Decision-making skills and Career Exploration Activities of Grade 11
Students in Public and Private schools: A basis for Policy Guide for an
enhanced Senior High School Career Guidance Advocacy Program


CHRISTINE V. YAMBAO


INTRODUCTION

The year 2011 marks the launching of the National Career Advocacy Program
by the Human Development Poverty Reduction Cabinet Cluster Convergent
Programs on Job-Skills Matching under the Aquino administration. This national
initiative as a collaboration of the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE),
Department of Education (DepEd), Commission on Higher Education (CHED),
Technical Education Skills and Development Authority (TESDA), Department of
Science and Technology (DOST) and Professional Regulation Commission (PRC).
This program is designed to resolve the job- skills mismatch in the country that is
the leading cause of unemployment.
In aid to this program, Dep Ed has ordered for the annual conduct of the
Career advocacy activities in all secondary schools. At present, DepEd Order no. 41
series of 2015 stipulates the guidelines in the conduct of the Career Guidance
Program for the upcoming Senior High School students. In the same memorandum,
modules for the career guidance to be undertaken by the career advocates, guidance
counselors or the classroom advisers with their Grade 10 students are specified.
As for the other implementing agency of the Career Guidance Advocacy
Program in the province of Zamboanga Sibugay, the Department of Labor and
Employment has sponsored various capacity-building activities on the Career
Guidance Activity program (CGAP) for the guidance counselors and career
advocates in the province to enhance them to be competent enough in handling the
career development and concerns of students both in the public and private
secondary schools.
The CHED contribution to this collaborative program is through the tertiary
level guidance counselors who are invited to serve as facilitators/ coordinators
during the gathering of the clustered schools in the annual launching of the
implementation of the program.
The career guidance program in the province is conducted during the months
of July to October among the over 70 secondary schools in the province. Included in
the activities are parades with students wearing the uniform for their preferred
career choice, lecture forum on the Senior High School and the overall advantages of
the RA 10533 Enhanced Basic Education Act of 2013, Vocational education,
Entrepreneurship, Personality development and the likes. Other topics covered are
the Labor Market Information and topics on TESDA programs topics that are
provided for both the students and the parents from the public and private schools.
The facilitators/ speakers are the career advocates, guidance counselors and the
DOLE personnel. Other community resource persons are professionals from various
fields who are invited to offer inspiring and encouraging messages for the students
and parents emphasizing on the importance of education as a social investment for
their family and the community that leads towards nation building.
At present, DepEd Order No. 41 series of 2015 stipulates the conduct of
Career Guidance Advocacy Program for Senior High School where learning modules
for Grade 10 are presented. These three modules cover the topics on self-
awareness, the Senior High School program and the career decision-making skills.
However, it is a pressing concern that the Grade 11 students, who were the
recipients of previous career guidance activities, but are already in a chosen/
preferred Senior High School track, are not receiving follow up career guidance
activities. As these students are already in their pre-college years, it is essential that
there should be a policy to cover the Continuous Improvement activities and to
cover for the specific career guidance program tailored to their needs and suitable
to their level. This is not withstanding that part of the Senior High School curriculum
for Grade 12 includes, a Practicum/ OJT which shall require them to possess the
ideal career - ready entry skills.
Career exploration activities will aid in the establishment of one's career
decision-making skills and for the youth, these will allow them the much needed
exposure for the students to gain satisfactory knowledge and tools to equip them in
making wise career path planning.
The proponent, having been an active career guidance advocate for the last
three years working in collaboration with the Department of Education (DepED)
and the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE), is undertaking this study to
be able to determine the career development of the senior high school students. The
intention of this output is also to help out the colleagues in the guidance profession
to better deliver the career advocacy goals through a continuous improvement of
the system of delivering their career guidance services to the client.
This proposal is prepared to improve the career guidance advocacy program
particularly for the Senior High School students which will serve as the basis for
crafting a Policy Brief for the implementing agencies of the National Career
Advocacy Program.


PROBLEM QUESTIONS

This action research is proposed to identify the Career Decision-Making skills
and the Career Exploration activities of the Grade 11 students from the Public and
Private secondary schools. Moreover, the findings of the study shall lead to the
drafting of a Policy Brief on the conduct of an enhanced Career Guidance Program
for Senior High School students.
Specifically, this study shall endeavor to answer the following :

1. What is the demographic profile of the Grade 11 students from the public
and private high schools when classified into :
1.1. Age
 1.2. Gender
1.3. Parent's educational background
1.4 Socio economic status
1.5 SHS tracks (preferred tracks and the actual tracks enrolled in-
Academics, TVL, Sports, Arts and Design

2. What is the Career Decision-making skills among the Grade 11 Public &
Private high school students?
2.1. Goal Selection
2.2. Problem-solving
2.3. Information gathering
2.4 Goal Pursuit management

3. What is the Career Exploration Activities among the Grade 11 Public &
Private high school students?
2.1. Environmental exploration
2.2 Self-exploration

4. Is there a significant difference between the demographic profile and the
decision-making skills of the Grade 11 Public & Private high school students?

5. Is there a significant difference between the demographic profile and the
Career exploration of the Grade 11 Public & Private high school students?

6. Is there a significant relationship between the demographic profile, the
decision-making skills and career exploratory activities of the Grade 11 Public &
Private high school students?

7. What are the factors that influence the career decision-making skills of the
Grade 11 students from the public and private schools?

 8. What are the career exploration activities of the Grade 11 students from
the public and private schools?

9. What are the needed Career Guidance tools and competencies of the
Career advocates in order to be more effective in the conduct of the Career Guidance
Activities?

METHODOLOGY
This study shall employ the quantitative (employment of standardized
survey questionnaires) and the qualitative methods (interviews, Focus group
discussions) to better explain the phenomenon on the complex factors that beset the
career development of Senior High School Students.

Data Needed and Data Gathering Method
The demographic profile of the Grade 11 students from the Public and
Private secondary schools may be gathered from the Learner's Information System
while other data such as the educational background of the parents and the family
socio-economic standing may be gathered through a survey.
The Career decision-making skills of the Grade 11 students from the Public
and Private secondary schools may be gathered through a standardized test such as
the Career-decision making efficacy scale.
The information regarding the Career exploration activities shall be collected
using the standardized tool, the Career search index.
Moreover, to support the claim of the student's responses, a Focus Group
Discussion among the career advocates & guidance counselors, from the public and
private schools shall be undertaken, together with the Department of Labor and
Employment (DOLE) and DepEd personnel to gather information on the student's
career development skills from the guidance practitioner's perspective. The
gathered responses from the FGD shall be clustered into common themes so as to
identify the career needs of the senior high school students from the perspective of
the practitioners.

Methods of Analyses

The descriptive problems shall be utilizing the frequency, mean and
percentage.
The inferential problems shall be answered through employing the tests of
difference (independent sample t-test) and the associative relational test (linear bi-
variate correlation).