If you were to score an ‘A’ in a national examination, what career would you want to pursue? This sounds like a rhetoric question since we already know the responses many of us would provide. We have followed media clips on the best performers in the national exams when asked about the careers they would want to pursue.
The options for ‘A’ students seem stuck at either medicine, engineering, piloting or more recently actuarial science. For those who are new to actuarial science, it is the discipline that applies mathematical and statistical methods to assess risk in the insurance and finance industries.
In most of these cases, the best academic performers are rarely exposed to the expectations of the careers society expects them to undertake. So they only pick them for purposes of being in sync with societal expectations and not necessarily because that is what they actually want to pursue in college. My biggest concern, however, is why we have allowed ourselves to get fixated with certain careers for ‘A’ students.
The examination system in this country does not necessarily bring out the best in terms of cognitive capacities in the learners. There are reports about the increasing practice of cramming for passing exams and not necessarily to facilitate learning. Cramming for an exam can lead to confusion of facts the student has already learnt. It also leads to inability to connect new facts to prior learning. Cramming does not allow time for the brain to process the information and make critical connections in concepts.
Generally speaking, every one of us has been wired to undertake certain tasks. We then feel satisfied in careers that allow us the opportunity to exploit the inherent capacities since this leads to a more natural consensus between our capacities and the opportunities. Picking analogies from the motoring industry, we have manufacturers who design their vehicles as luxury cars while others are designed to carry heavy weights.
The resiliency level of each of the vehicles is designed according to the expected load capacity. Forcing a saloon car to carry weights against the manufacturer’s specifications in not only detrimental to the car but also unwise on the part of the driver or the loader. Many parents, guardians and students force certain careers on themselves even when they know that they have not been constructed for such.
It is helpful to note that some of the “A” students might be predestined for careers that are art-based and hence should be provided with the opportunity, appreciation and encouragement to become the best they can be in their areas of interest. I keep asking myself ‘why should we not have ‘A’ students training as musicians, artists, footballers, teachers, community health workers?’
There is the general assumption that such careers should be left for those who score below a certain mark. We then end up as a society that has relegated people who don’t score so highly in the national examinations while pursuing the ‘high’ scorers with the aim of developing them in the ‘high’ flying careers.
The irony is that most of those who eventually succeed in life are those who went to careers that fit their internal capacities and not necessarily those we force to certain careers. How many times have we heard of people who have had to leave ‘high’ flying careers for relatively ‘lowly’ regarded ones seeking for career satisfaction?
Career has been described as life plus work. At a forum with young people, I asked why ‘A’ students should not study music and the response was characteristic of our societal mindset. I was told that it would be a waste of the best brains if we let them study arts. With this, I wondered; don’t we need intelligent musicians? don’t we need intelligent footballers? and don’t we need intelligent teachers?
My parting shot is that parents and teachers should seek to understand the most appropriate career for particular students and not force them into certain careers. Recently, I indicated that many students are forced into careers by their parents and teachers for subconsciously selfish reasons. They all want to brag about the careers their children or former students are pursuing with little regard to the capacities and interests of the younger ones.
kahihucareers@gmail.com
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