" Career4Life" Online career guidance solution for Sri Lankan School Leavers ( Students after advanced level examinations)

Abstract

Project “Career4life” – A Web application aimed at providing career guidance to the students who have recently completed their Advanced Level Examination. Through the research it was identified that majority of the students who have completed their Advanced Level Examination are left in a vague situation where they don’t have a clear idea in what they should be doing after Advanced Level Examination. Even though some prefer to go for higher studies by enrolling to a degree program offered either by a state university/private institution, often that decision is made without understanding what they really want to do and what they are really good at. When it comes to the education system in Sri Lanka, less priority is given for a field like career guidance and majority of the school career guidance unit are in a dormant state and number of teachers who have been trained to cater students are also not enough. Due to this, even though students are willing to get career advices/opinion, they don’t have a proper channel to get it. This web application was developed with the intention to cater this target group. Through this web application students can understand their preference through a career assessment test and find out most suitable career/educational path depending on their Ability, Interest, Values and behavioral traits. In the meantime they could arrange online meeting with a career counselor through the web site if students are willing to get online career counseling from a reputed career counselor with regards to results that has been generated through the web site. These requirements were identified through a comprehensive industrial survey with questionnaires, Interviews which were carried out with randomly selected students who have recently completed Advanced Level and teachers who are heading the career guidance units.