Relevance of the senior high school curriculum in relation to contextual reality of the world of work

Abstract

The purpose of the study was to find out the relevance of the senior high school curriculum in relation to the contextual reality of the world of work. The objective was therefore to identify the skills embedded in the curriculum, those skills the learners have acquired and those that employers usually demand of employees. A descriptive case study design was used. In I this narrative account, a content analysis of the senior high school curriculum was done in order to determine the skills contained in the curriculum. Through a qualitative research approach and purposive sampling procedure, twenty-one students and fourteen other key informants or employers were selected for an interview. The data from the interview were sorted out into themes and coded through the use of NVivo 8 to help in the counting of frequencies of each skill. It was found out that the senior high school curriculum, though was generally rated as relevant, the skills with the highest frequencies in the curriculum focused on attitudes and values while those required by employers focused on the application of knowledge. The skills with the highest frequencies were those of the affective domain but the highest percentage values suggested in the curriculum constituted those of the cognitive domain. On the basis of these findings, it can be concluded' that the curriculum is relevant in instilling values into the students but it is not relevant in the application of knowledge that employers usually demand of employees at the work environment. It is, therefore, recommended that the curriculum be reviewed, if similar findings of this type of research in different contexts are found, to get rid of those mismatches, in order to make it more relevant to the needs of contemporary society.