Abstract:
Career planning and limited career opportunities are not educational problems. They are essentially due to economic forces and political responses to those forces. They are, however, problems for education, since they challenge many of the basic assumptions built into the structure of our educational system. The purpose of the study is to investigate how high school students in Sidon area view the value and general goals of education, and how they relate it to their career plans. The study also aims at exploring the effect of their educational background on potential job opportunities. The data was collected in Sidon area using a survey design and the cluster sample technique, where a questionnaire was distributed in a number of high schools in the area (Public and private; for boys, for girls and co-ed.). In addition, a number of interviews were conducted with managers and employers in different sectors of the economy to study their perception of education and the value they give to it on the job. The study shows that respondents highly perceive education as a mean of developing personal skills and general awareness of their surrounding environment. However, they have expressed that they find little relation between the education they get and the realities of the professional world. In addition, respondents feel that the current educational curriculum does not help them in fulfilling the requirements of the career they choose. Moreover, complains were made about the absence of guidance and counseling services in high schools, such services which would provide the students with extended information about the professional world and offer valuable advice regarding career planning. Employers, on the other hand, feel that education would help an employee perform better but is of no direct use on the job. Moreover, they seem to prefer an experienced employee rather than an educated one, but added that best results occur when education and experience are joined together. In short, employers and students believe that the educational system should be modified in such a way which can contribute more to the development of the professional world, thus providing students with better job opportunities and employers with the skilled labor they need to boost production.
