Career Choices in Relation to Nursing - Health Systems Trust

Nursing Career Choice
3. KEY FINDINGS
3.1. Career Choices of School Leavers
In order to understand the career choices of learners, it was necessary to assess the academic
streams that learners are doing at school. It was found that 31.1% of learners are in Commerce
stream, 29.5% are in General or Humanities stream, while 39.2% are in the Science stream. In
most cases it is assumed that when learners are in the science stream they are going to pursue
science or medically related professions, but that was proven wrong by the careers that learners
said they are going to pursue.
When asked the reasons for their choices, learners said that they had an interest in those careers
in line with their academic streams. However, there are some learners who appeared to be
confused and whose academic streams were not in line with their career choices. This could be
due to the limited availability of certain learning areas due to shortages of educators, and that
their learning area of choice is not offered in their school. Learners then find themselves opting
for the next available learning area. In some cases teachers chose the streams for learners.
3.2. Factors Influencing Learners on Their Career Choices
There were difficulties in attempting to link the careers of the parents of learners to the careers
chosen by learners. to assess whether the careers of parents play a role in their children’s career
choices. Not surprisingly there were no fathers in the nursing profession while 6.9% mothers in
the sample were reported to be in the nursing profession.
Instances were found where parents actively discouraged their children from following the career
they were engaged in.
“My mother is a nurse by profession; however, she does not encourage me to do nursing. I think
it is because of the stress she is going through in her profession. She even stated that she is not
prepared to fund me if I enrol for nursing when furthering my studies.” (DGH)
In a few instances, there were parents who encouraged their children to choose the careers that
they, as parents, were doing.
“I always wanted to be a nurse. I did not want to be a police personnel but my father is a
policeman as well as many of my relatives. He is encouraging me to be a policewoman and he
does not want to take anything outside that. So, I find myself forced to do it.”(TSS)
Overall, parents, teachers and relatives have been found to be the most influential people to
learners, with approximately 35.5% of the learners reporting to being influenced by their parents;
followed by teachers, where 17% of the learners are said to be influenced by them; relatives and
siblings followed as sources of influence. Surprisingly only 2 learners reported to be influenced
by guidance councillors. However, this is not surprising as only two schools reported having
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