Around this time of the year, children in Year 8 and Year 9 (depending on the school the child attends) are encouraged to start thinking about their career. This is because they would soon need to make their choice of subjects, which would eventually determine what career path to take.

The choice of subjects to study in the last years of compulsory schooling would also determine what career paths have been excluded.

For example, if one chooses business subjects such as accounting and economics, one is likely to be looking at a career in a business environment. However, that is also likely to exclude a career in, say, engineering or architecture, a career in law or a career in life sciences.

The question that needs to be asked is whether it is morally right to get children of the age of 13 and 14 to determine what their career choice should be and to determine what it should not be. Can children at such an age define what they want to do and explore a variety of career options, even if with the help of guidance?

All too often, the choice ends up being not the children’s choice but that of their parents and guidance teachers.

The second aspect that needs to be understood is the time lag that exists between supply and demand in academic provision. Let us illustrate this with a practical example.

In this country we keep saying that today there is a lack of people who study science subjects, which industry requires.  If the policymakers make an effort to encourage more students to choose

science subjects, they need a total of seven years as a minimum to start having students with a first degree in sciences – two years at senior school level, two years at a post-secondary level and three years for a first degree. Industry would need such people to be specialised. So we need to add another two years for a master’s qualification, making it a total of nine years.

We are not ser­ving employers well when we force career choices at such an early age

Can employers survive with such a time lag? Expecting employers to indicate what specialisations they will require in nine years’ time is a demonstration of ignorance of business realities.

What is the solution to this? First and foremost, academics, educationalists and policymakers need to start feeling uncomfortable with this situation. Unless they feel uncomfortable, the situation cannot change. We will continue forcing children to make choices they are ill-equipped to make.

Second, the school curriculum at middle school and senior school level needs to change. We can no longer have very focused and specific subjects taught at this level, such as accounting and economics, but we should be teaching broader subjects such as business studies (which would

incorporate topics like economics, marketing and accounting) and technology. Some concepts are too difficult for children to understand and so have no value in the educational formation of the child.

Third, we should make it easier for young people to make a career switch. We should not be forcing them to start afresh but enable them to move from one career to another by allowing them to make use of the know­ledge already acquired. In seve­ral countries, today there are graduate entry programmes for a number of professions.

Career choices are difficult but we do not fully appreciate how difficult they are. Moreover, we do not appreciate how hard it is for a young person to discover that the choice of subjects made in one’s early teens was a wrong one and is made to carry that burden for the rest of one’s working life.

In addition, we are not ser­ving employers well when we force career choices at such an early age. Employers will keep complaining that the education sector is not providing students with the skills and specialisations they need at that point in time. We should rethink the whole process. But for some, that may prove to be impossible to do because it gets them out of their comfort zone.