PARENTAL INVOLVEMENT IN OCCUPATIONAL EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN

In this study the emphasis of selecting a school and profession is put onto the family role in educational and professional guidance in order to help the students to obtain the necessary information for further education, by the help of their parents, more efficiently and more functionally. The study was conducted in Virovitica and Podravina County with two groups of subjects and included 1.063 children-555 of them were eighth grade students of elementary school and 508 were first grade students of secondary school-and 1.063 student's parents. The study was used to examine the hypothesis that family is a primary, unquestioned, and efficient factor for making choices of further education or occupation of their children, but at the same time insufficiently informed and concerned with other factors. With this study we wanted to test if the awareness of parents is the basis for making right choices of further education and choosing the appropriate school and occupation if it depends upon the information from various factors. The results of the study confirmed the hypothesis that parents/family are irreplaceable as factors of educational and professional guidance. The parents are successful in carrying out these tasks only when they have enough information to pass on to their children in their process of making choices.