CHOOSING LIBRARIANSHIP AS A CAREER CHOICE BY SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

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CHOOSING LIBRARIANSHIP AS A CAREER CHOICE BY SECONDARY SCHOOL STUDENTS

(A CASE STUDY OF SOME SELECTED SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN LOKOJA METROPOLIS)

CHAPTER ONE

1.0 INTRODUCTION

The New Webster’s Dictionary of English Language (1992) define career as “Progress through life with respect to ones work; a means of earning a living; a profession”. This is synonymous with occupation, which is seen as an “activity by which one earns one’s living or fills one’s time, or an instance of this.”

Career can be considered as the way the individual expresses himself and relates to society through life. Popoola, (2004) sees it as a job, or profession for which one undergoes regulated education and training over a period of time and which one intends to follow for the whole of one’s life. It is thus a chosen pursuit, life work and success in one’s profession. It is the sequence of major positions occupied by a person throughout his/her lifetime. It is the totality of work one does in one’s working life or a course pursued over a period of time (Oyetade, 2001).

Choosing a career by the individual is one of the most important yet, difficult decisions to make in lifetime, since every one reserves that right to make the choice. In modern society, every individuals always have concern for this need though dealing with it without a real understanding of how individuals make their choice. A child dreams of what to become in future but finds out that the goals to be attained in life changes just as the preferred career became largely influenced by what is possible to be done. The individual looks forward to a fulfillment in a chosen career by it reward system, although its rewards are not the same for everyone, some are into  career by it reward system, although the rewards are not the same some are into careers so as to be looked up to, others derive great satisfaction from a job well done.

Career choice is one of the most important decision in the life of an individual. It has far-reaching implications on the individuals future in terms of lifestyle, status, income, security and job satisfaction. Although, personal philosophy, achievement and self-image are important factors in this decision, the external environment is also very influential in characterizing career and shaping aspirations. The value an individual holds influences the success and failures he experience, the social class in which he has developed and his interests, strength and capacities are only some of the factors which is not merely a decision of a moment but a complex and difficult process spanning years, if not a lifetime (Ginzberg, Aelrad and Herma, 1951).

An individual need is one of the important factor that determine the choice of his/her career. Other factors include important people in one’s life, parent, admired works, work experience and peer influence.

Students all over the world are often faced with the herculean task of career decision taking. The choice of careers, subject and courses of study in schools and of subsequent paths to follow are always difficult problems facing prospective undergraduates. Often, choosing the right subject combination leading to the right profession can make the difference between enjoying and detesting a career.

 1.2 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

It is clear that the future of one profession both rest largely on the success of attracting more people especially younger generation into the profession and the ability of the profession to retain its workforce. Thus, it is important for each profession or organization to develop, to appeal to the newcomers to their workforce and make their profession or organization as appealing and as rewarding as possible as career choice for them.

The library is a nerve centre of academic institutions in Nigeria but libraries and librarianship have evolved gradually and have not yet taken their proper place among the institutions and professions in the country. In spite of the vast and diverse knowledge and information resources available in the libraries, they still remain the least popular institutions and the least sought profession in Nigeria (Okoro, 2009). Given the fact that a strong academic background breeds career success it is not difficult to understand why profession such as lawyer, doctors, engineers, or accountants are traditionally held in high esteem because they all demand solid academic background.

Librarianship is a profession that is dedicated to serving the public, to providing timely and accurate information and which has a great impact to the development of a society. Nevertheless, the profession does not share the respect of those other professions mentioned above, Igbinosa (2007) maintains that students do not pursue career in librarianship because it does not have the prestige given to other profession. This is inspite of the fact that librarians are the silent heroes behind the success stories of students, researchers etc.

As a result of the various government policies and plans to make Nigeria an advance country/nation, by the year 2020, Nigeria is experiencing and will experience rapid economic transformation which will accelerate further within the next 25 years. If libraries and information centres are to be recognized as agent of change within the context of a new affluent and information-rich society, one should ensure that one would be able to cope with the new demand of Library services. Thus, human resources development for librarians and information personnel should provide the necessary education and training that will enable them to play new role in this ever changing environment.

How is this profession to compete for the best and the most ambitious “young blood” into the profession if this profession continues to be a subject of negative images and concern level of misunderstanding? Recruiting and retaining enough of the best, brightest and diverse individuals into Librarianship workforce to meet present and future anticipated needs of information experts is really a challenge this profession currently faces.

There is an essential need to attract good quality students into the library profession as the recruitment and retention of the library and information students are critical issues in contemporary library education.

 1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Close contact with new entrants into some Nigerian Library schools shows that many would have preferred other courses of study to Library and Information Science.

It seems also that fresh students in those schools offered to study the course only after being rejected by the department of first choice owing to low scores obtained at the university matriculations exam. They probably have tried in vain to secure admission into other choice course and opted to study library and information science only as last resort.

In Nigeria there appear to be less research directed specifically to this area. Despite the desire to attract good quality students into the librarian profession, there has been remarkable little research done into how this particular age group (17-19 years old) perceives the profession as a career choice.

Many literature review have shown that librarianship is regarded as an undervalued profession and does not have the social standing compare to other profession. Librarianship is also not a first career choice. Martin (1995) called librarianship “accidental profession”. It is also disheartening that the profession continue to receive unappealing images, status, reputations and prestige. Furthermore, another substantial concern is that there seems to have a little understanding amongst the general public what library and information (LIS) workers do and what responsibility they undertake. This study was necessary to be undertaken in order to address and to explore whether those issue of concern prevail in this younger age group through the analysis of their attitude towards librarianship as a career, what the perceived factors that attract or detract from choosing librarianship as a career; and what are lingering image they hold onto this profession.

The negative image perceived towards this profession, the shortage of librarians, remarkable low research directed towards this area, coupled with the increasing demand for high quality and motivated librarians to cater for the future information needs in the library profession, are issues which accelerated this investigation of selected secondary schools career decision/choice.

1.3 OBJECTIVE OF THE STUDY

The main objective of this study was to explore and to examine the attitude of students towards choosing librarianship as a career in some selected secondary schools in Lokoja metropolis.

The objective of this study were:

1. To find out factors that motivate or discourage students in the selected secondary schools who are the prospected university or polytechnic applicants to choose librarianship as a career.
2. Explore their perceptions towards the nature of the job and educational qualifications of a professional librarian.
3. To identify their level of awareness towards a career in Librarianship.

1.4 RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The research questions prepared for this research work is as follows:

1. Are secondary school students aware of career in librarianship?
2. Are secondary school students aware of degree offered in library and information science (LIS) at public universities?
3. What is the perception of secondary school students towards the place librarians work?
4. Are secondary school students aware or agree to the fact that librarianship is the mother of all other profession?
5. What is the perception of students towards the role and nature of the work that librarians do?
6. How do secondary school students rank librarians against other professional career group?
7. Librarians cannot be as knowledgeable as other professionals like Medical Doctor, Lawyer, Engineers, Accountants etc.
8. Librarianship is the greatest of all other profession.
9. Do you intend to choose librarianship as one of your choice course.

10.Librarianship nurses other profession to grow.

1.5 SCOPE OF THE STUDY

This research work “Choosing Librarianship as a career by Secondary School Students” is aimed at exploring the awareness, attitude and perception of secondary school students towards librarianship.

The research work seeks to explore five (5) secondary schools (both private and public) in Lokoja metropolis, with only the SS 3 students being its major focus, as they are already in the process of applying for admission into universities, polytechnic, College of Education etc undergraduate courses or in other words they are in the process of selecting a career.

The information required for this research work shall be gotten with the use of questionnaire to be administered to some students to be randomly selected out of the five (5) selected secondary schools in Lokoja metropolis.

1.6 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

This study has attempted to contribute some general knowledge about the attitude of Secondary school students towards choosing librarianship as a career in Nigeria. The study also explored the perceived factors that could attract or detract new faces into librarianship which has not accorded attention in library research. This will hopefully help to ensure the survival and growth of this profession in Nigeria. Conducting such an extensive study today using all relevant data sources also would help the profession to better understand the trends and the current libraries profession through reports of the findings.

The Nigeria Library Association (NLA) or other related agencies may be able to utilize the data to make specific policy, recommendations, publicity, campaign or promotional activities and marketing strategies for targeting change to address any misconception and lack of information on the profession. They could extract the data that appear to be the greatest misconception in regard of students perception of librarianship. By utilizing

the data, hopefully, those who are concern for the profession would invest time and money to start preparing information materials describing those misunderstanding issues as well as increase their awareness and revealing more information to secondary school students regarding educational career opportunities in the field of librarianship.

New programmes and strategies could be developed to directly target potential candidates that are perceived as being very vital and required but lacking.

1.7 LIMITATIONS AND CONSTRAINTS OF THE STUDY

Work of this nature will not be without its limitations and constraints though intrinsic to the research findings. Chiefly amidst the constraints encountered was the time allotted by the authority to carry out the research work which is invariably very small amidst other academic commitments. Hence this bring about limiting our scope and coverage of the study to just five (5) secondary schools in Lokoja metropolis.

It must also be mentioned that work of this nature append financial requirement and owing to the economic status of the country, it was a bit difficult to raise enough finance for transportation from one school to another and also to carryout all other necessary activities.

Also, it is worthy of mention that much time was utilized and expended in seeking and gathering necessary information and materials required to support the work as little research has been channelled towards this area.

 1.8 DEFINITION OF KEY TERMS

Career – The New Webster’s Dictionary of English Language (1992) defines career as “progress through life with respect to one’s work; a means of earning a living, a profession”. This is synonymous with occupation, which is seen as “an activity by which one earn one’s living or fills one’s time or an instance of this”.

Career can be considered as the way the individual expresses himself and relates to society through lifre.

Popoola (2002) sees it as a job, or profession for which one undergoes regulated education and training, over a period of time and which one intends to follow for the whole of one’s life. It is thus a choose pursuit, life work and success in one’s profession. It is the sequence of major positions occupied by a person throughout his/her lifetime. Base on the above about career there is the need to observe the concept profession.

Profession – Profession according to Ajibero (1992) is an occupation which requires certain professional standard, education or training. Harris (1970) argued that a profession is a body of knowledge and skills held in

common and continually extended by united effort.

Further, it was stressed that a profession is based on an educational process which is itself based on the common knowledge and common skills in the ordering or applying of which the professional group has a programmed responsibility.

Librarianship – Librarianship is generally considered to be concerned with helping individuals obtain reliable information to increase their knowledge in all spheres of their lives from the cumulated information store of mankind.

Librarianship again is defined as a profession devoted to applying theory and technology to the creation, selection, organization, management, preservation, dissemination and utilization of collections of information in all formats. A person formally trained or certified to perform such service is a librarian (Reitz, 2002).

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