‘Right career choice key to job satisfaction in changing work environment’

Students have been advised to make the right career choices as it is crucial to job satisfaction and will help them remain relevant in the dynamic work environment.

Director of Education, Bishop Howells Memorial Grammar School, Mrs. Modupe Theresa Babalola, gave the advice while presenting a keynote address at the school’s 2019 career day celebration.

According to Babalola, the high rate of unemployment today calls for proper and relevant choice of career. She said students needed to be guided properly to pick the right jobs that will stand the test of time.

In making career choice, she counseled that students must resist peer pressure and parental desire, but must consider their interest, ability, aptitude and personality.

The school’s Principal, Ven. Tunde Oduwole, said the idea behind the programme was to prepare the leaders of tomorrow now so that they don’t get to the future by accident.

“The future is now. The students can create their tomorrow today, and that is what choosing the right career is all about. The world is in flurries of activities; jobs are changing as emerging new technologies drives a lot of jobs. Experts have predicted that in the next 20 years, some jobs will no longer exist. It is good for children who are in school to know what lies ahead, so that they will not be using yesterday’s tools to do today’s business and expect to be in tomorrow’s jobs.

“So it is essential that we provide what the past generation never experienced, and that is guidance in school. People landed in various professions by accident. They were really not properly guided,” he said.

Oduwole said the school has a unique programme called the Students Career Internship Programme that enables JSS 3 students, after final examinations, go on internship in the prospective profession of their choice.

“So if a child decides to study Medicine, we post him to a hospital and he will be there for two weeks doing some intensive studies before he gets into SS1,” he said.

Also speaking at the event, a banker, Miss Olusore Adefioye, urged the students to have dreams they can envision and actualise in the foreseeable future. She emphasised values, vision and commitment as necessary pillars making dreams become reality.