Career aspirations of University Of Zimbabwe geography undergraduate students and the supply of graduate geography teachers

Abstract

Before independence, the majority of geography graduates from the University of Zimbabwe, particularly blacks, used to become teachers in secondary schools. Employment opportunities outside the teaching profession were severely restricted for blacks. Since 1980, however, employment prospects for geography graduates have widened considerably. Although this trend is still on a small scale, it nonetheless is following the pattern in developed countries where only a minority of geography graduates now become teachers. In the United Kingdom, for instance, only about 20% of the annual output of geography graduates in the early 1980s were likely to seek employment in education. The remainder got employed in a wide spectrum of jobs in administration, business, commerce, industry and the environmental field (Balchin, 1983; Briggs, 1988). A sample survey conducted in late 1986 of all Britisn students who obtained their first degrees in 1980 found that, in terms of all jobs held by geography graduates over the six years, 22% were in banking and finance, followed by education with 19% and public administration with 17% (Johnston, 1990). At the University of Glasgow, 28% of the geography graduates between 1981 and 1987 went into business and finance as their first destinations after university while only 18% went into teacher training (Briggs, 1988).