Employability of students in vocational secondary school: Role of psychological capital and student-parent career congruences

Abstract

The main problem of vocational secondary school graduates is unemployment or inactive youth. Apart from developing their ability, external support, particularly from their parents, is also important for students in a collectivistic country like Indonesia. Therefore, this study aims to predict the role of psychological capital and perceived student-parent career congruences to the employability development of vocational secondary school students. Participants were 317 final-year students from rural private vocational secondary schools in Indonesia, 46.23% male and 31.76% female. They were 17–19 years old, mean age of 17.21 and standard deviation of 0.64. The data were analyzed by hierarchical regression analysis. We found that psychological capital and student-parent career congruences were indeed significantly correlated with employability development in the vocational secondary school students. These findings are beneficial for vocational schools in preparing the school program to improve students’ psychological ability and work readiness. The results also give some insights for parents to provide facilitative support for their children to make them more employable as vocational graduates.