Relationship Between Parental Guidance and Students Career Choice in Secondary Schools in Federal Capital Territory, Abuja-Nigeria

This study examined the relationship between parental guidance and students’ career choice in secondary schools in FCT, Abuja. Two research questions were formulated in order to guide the study. Primary data was used with the use of questionnaire.  A descriptive statistic was adopted for the study and the population of 12, 650 students in public and private secondary schools who are scheduled to write the Senior Secondary School Certificate Examination in six (6) Area councils of FCT. Stratified random sampling was used to selected one government school and one private school from each of the six Area Councils, total twelve (12) schools. Six (6) schools were selected from the twelve schools and a total of 375 samples were finally selected randomly from the six schools. The hypotheses formulated were tested using t-test statistics at 0.05 level of significance. Findings from the study show that there was no significant difference between the guidance of parents on students from urban or rural areas of residence.  However, parental guidance was higher on students’ career choice in private schools than those in public schools. It was therefore recommended that Parents should avoid the attitude of pushing their children into pursuing those wishful careers they were unable to pursue or achieved rather, they should employ the assistance of professional career counselors in helping their children to make intelligent career decisions. Also, there is need for government and other relevant agencies in charge of educational planning to make a comprehensive review of programme/curriculum of career education which will involve learning and choice of career from primary school level. Keywords: Career Choice, Parental Guidance, Secondary Schools Student