Career Interests of Junior High School Students Towards the Crafting of a Developmental Career Guidance Program

The study formulated a developmental career guidance program for Junior High School students for them to choose and start with the right choice of tracks in Senior High School. A developmental career guidance program in the Junior High School is vital in honing the students in choosing the suited track before enrolling in the Senior High School. This will make them bastion of our community’s labor force in the future. A multi-stage sampling was used to select the 395 respondents. Fifty nine (59) schools from the 4 Congressional Districts of the Province were included. It was found that the career interests of the junior high school students are oriented toward white collar jobs that require academic preparations from senior high school. Majority of the school administrators and guidance counselors are observing the Career Orientation as the best tool in guiding students choose their future career. It was also found that the school administrators and support staff recognize the need for an enhanced developmental career guidance program as tool for school management. The results of the National Career Assessment Examination (NCAE) and CEM Interest Profiler serve as guide in planning activities for a career guidance program in the junior high school years. Periodic assessment of career interest of students in each level in Junior High School must be conducted and paired with appropriate activities as intervention. School managers may venture on crafting their developmental career guidance program customized to their students' career interests. The Developmental Career Guidance Program formulated in this study may be adopted as a model in providing career guidance in each grade level in the Junior High School.