NATIONAL Career Development Awareness Week is now being celebrated in schools and educational institutions across Jamaica.

Between February 13 and 17 scores of schools, educational institutions and parish libraries will be transformed with career development exhibitions and presentations geared at exposing our country's youths to potential career options available worldwide.

National Career Development Awareness Week is being spearheaded by the Ministry of Education and HEART Trust/NTA -- Jamaica's national training agency.

According to Erica Williams, the chairperson for Career Development Awareness Week's Planning Committee, students are being encouraged to visit the expo booths available at their parish libraries and selected educational institutions for career development advice and to be informed of the new career options available to them.

"I believe that students at the post secondary-level should visit and participate in Career Development Awareness Week, which is now underway islandwide," Williams, who is also the manager for the Career Development Services Unit at TVET in Gordon Town told TEENage last week.

"Career development is for everyone at different ages and stages in life. Students need to know of the new jobs that are on the market, especially with the advent of technology, new jobs are emerging and old jobs, which are well-known, for example accounting, are becoming extinct," she said.

Students of the fourth, fifth and sixth forms, she said, are the main target groups along with adults who desire a career change, or to better develop their career skills.

This year's theme is 'The Road to a Brighter Future... Education, Employment, and Economic Development'.

Williams told TEENage that it is through career development that one determines the nature and quality of life s/he lives, kind of people s/he becomes, the sense of purpose s/he has and the annual income at their disposal.

Career development also determines the social and economic contribution youths and adults make to the communities and societies of which they are a part.

The main objective of National Career Development Awareness Week, this year, is to demonstrate the connection between the three E's... Education, Employment and Economic Development.

Williams, on behalf of the stakeholders of National Career Development Awareness Week, is encouraging students to become a part of this initiative. Curious students who want information about potential career paths they can take, should visit HEART institutions across the island or their parish library she said.

"We want all Jamaicans, not only the students, to take career development very seriously. Career development is not about schooling. It affects our entire lives. From engaging in the sessions this week and visiting the expos, students will be able to have a focus in terms of creating their career paths and making choices which will make them marketable," she said before ending her interview with TEENage.

Tomorrow there will be a conference with regards to National Career Development at the Jamaica Conference Centre located in Downtown, Kingston beginning at 9:00 am. Students from various institutions are invited and the keynote speaker will be the Minister of Education, Rev Ronald Thwaites.

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