An application for career path decision making among high school students: case of Nairobi

Abstract

In many developing countries, young people have and are embracing formal education as this has proven to be one of the main ways of alleviating poverty. In Kenya, the level of literacy has taken an upward trajectory for more than a decade now. On the other hand, studies show that majority of Kenyan Students do not receive proper and adequate career guidance in their early ages so as to make informed decisions on which career best fits their preferences. In addition, students neither have adequate information of the available career paths and occupational opportunities neither are they well informed of which opportunity they best fit. Furthermore, Information communication and technology has not been adequately leveraged in education sector to facilitate students in making careers that they best fit. The purpose of this study is to develop an application that can facilitate students in making informed decision about their career aspirations. The study was guided by the objectives: To establish the specific data and information necessary for determining a career path of a student, to review the challenges that exist in the choice of a career path among students, to review the existing techniques that are used in determining the career path of a student, to develop an application for career path decision making and to test the application. To achieve these objectives, a thorough review of the scholarly literature was carried out, the researcher also carried out a pilot study to establish the viability and validity of the proposed solution, and spiral model of system development lifecycle was used to further define, model, develop and validate and implement the system. The researcher further reviewed the solution developed in comparison with the others that exist. Finally, recommendations were made and suggestion of further research work was proposed.