Problems of career guidance work at the secondary school

The present state of the domestic system of career guidance of schoolchildren doesn’t provide an acceptable level of compliance of person’s individual abilities to their choice of future profession. The objective of the present research is to assess the effectiveness of the existing system of school career guidance and to assess the opportunities of its optimization in the reality of secondary school activities. As a result of theoretical generalization of the studied problem, the authors make up an optimal algorithm of the career guidance for schoolchildren, which is composed of professional diagnosis, professional education, career guiding classes and psychological care. The experimental research reveals a number of important points. Only in 25 % of 10th grade pupils make decisive choice of the future profession in the beginning of the new school year. In most cases, that choice is based on the prestige of the profession and parents’ authority. Measures of professional diagnostic and professional orientation have increased the relative number of pupils who make an unequivocal choice of future profession up to 50 %. In 67 % of cases, the choice of the future profession is motivated by the opportunity of creative self-realization. The results of our research reveal two crucial points. Firstly, the practice of career guidance in an average high school is characterized by low productivity of work. Secondly, the introduction of the systematic, comprehensive approach to career guidance provides a high level of professional self-determination of pupils and motivates them to creative self-realization.