Why Is Career Planning a Low Priority in High Schools?

By John G. Bendt

Today a majority of high school students spend little time and effort exploring and evaluating what they want to do when they enter their work lives. As a result, they have little understanding of the workplace, and no action plan to prepare for a happy and successful future.

It’s paradoxical that college-bound students and their parents put so much energy into selecting and gaining admission to a good college, yet give only minimal thought to such tasks as selecting a future occupation and learning the workplace skills required to compete in a global job market. Many students thus enter college with little direction and are naive about how the real world functions.

The 2006 report put out by the Conference Board, the Partnership for 21st Century Skills, Corporate Voices for Working Families, and the Society for Human Resource Management, “Are They Really Ready To Work?,” found a disturbing trend developing in the United States: Many of today’s entry-level workers, even those with a four-year college degree, lack the critical workplace skills needed to succeed on the job. (The full report is available at www.conference-board.org .)