FEMALE PARTICIPATION IN TECHNICAL EDUCATION AND CAREER CHOICE IN CAPE COAST METROPOLIS: IMPLICATIONS FOR COUNSELLING

ABSTRACT Many females in the junior high schools think that certain occupations are designated for males and others for females. The purpose of the study was to investigate the level of participation of females in technical education and find out strategies to be adopted to promote junior high school girls interest in technical education. The study was guided by three research questions and four hypotheses. A random sample of 300 form three girls was drawn from 30 public junior high schools in the Cape Coast Metropolis for the study. Descriptive statistics was used to analyse the data pertaining to the research questions while inferential statistics (χ 2 and t-test) were used to analyse data regarding the hypotheses. The results show that (a) Junior High School girls have positive perception of technical education (b) the girls’ choice of career was influenced by their self-interest and gains and not by parental, teachers or peer influence, and (c) these girls lack of effective career guidance in the junior high schools by guidance co-ordinators affects their level of understanding in job trends. The test for hypothesis 1 indicated that school type influenced girls’ participation in technical education. Hypothesis 2 indicated that girls who live in an environment that has positive regard towards technical education might have positive perception on technical education. Hypothesis 3 indicated that girls who live in stereotyped environment are gender stereotyped than girls’ who live in non-stereotyped environment. Hypothesis 4 shows that girls type of programmes relate to their career choice. Each hypothesis was tested at 0.05 significant level.