BIODATA
ERIC NYARKO-SAMPSON, PhD, APR, F. AFTRA, FChPA, FCMC, Professor of Guidance and Counselling, began his education at Apowa Methodist School (near Takoradi), then to Abakrampa Methodist Primary School, Boa Amponsem Primary and Middle Schools in Dunkwa-on-Offin, and finally Aboom A. M. E. Zion Middle School, Cape Coast. He attended University Practice Secondary School for his GCE Ordinary Level Certificate and continued to Komenda College (now Komenda College of Education) where he had his initial teacher training education (Certificate “A”). He holds a Bachelor of Education (Psychology), Master of Philosophy (Guidance & Counselling), and Master of Arts (Human Resource Management), from the University of Cape Coast. He graduated with a Doctor of Philosophy degree in Educational Guidance and Counselling, from the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Nigeria.
He was the Foundation Dean, Faculty of Educational Foundations, College of Education Studies, University of Cape Coast, having served in various capacities in the university. He taught courses and serves as facilitator at national and international workshops in counselling, human resource management and organisational behaviour and change. His research interests include career counselling, school counselling, teacher education, issues in multiculturalism, and entrepreneurial education. Eric’s major research focuses on school counselling, and the implementation and evaluation of counselling services at all levels in Ghana’s educational institutions. His studies also investigate entrepreneurship as an alternative to building careers among the teeming youth, and thereby tackling the age-old issue of youth employment. He is a member of teams researching on issues in teacher education. He has supervised and turned out several postgraduate students at the Master of Philosophy and Doctor of Philosophy (12 in his area of specialization and 1 in Higher Educational Administration) levels, and published widely in locally, nationally and internationally refereed journals.
As Chairman of Ghana’s National Teaching Council from 2017 to 2020, Eric led the agency of the Ministry of Education in major reforms nationwide in the teaching profession to uphold the standards of teaching by the provision of a quality assurance process to support the delivery of education in pre-tertiary institutions in a professional and competent manner by licensed teachers who have graduated from a recognized teacher training programme. He led the National Teaching Council to introduce, and organized the first ever teacher licensing examinations, the Ghana Teacher Licensure Examination (GTLE), in Ghana, as part of the process of teacher professionalization.
Eric serves as an examiner/assessor for universities within and outside Ghana.
He served in capacities such as
• Chairman, Committee on Strategy for Placement of Products of Government’s Free Senior High School Policy, National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE).
• Chairman, Committee to Advise the Hon. Minister of State for Tertiary Education on Distance Education in Ghana.
• Chairman, Committee to consider offer of land with structures for the establishment of a College of Education at Ezinlibo, Jomoro District, Western Region.
• Chairman, Board of Governors; Oguaa Secondary Technical School.
• National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) Representative, Methodist University College, Ghana (MUCG) Governing Council.
• Member, National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE) Council.
• Member, Academic & Technical Committees of National Council for Tertiary Education (NCTE).
• Member, Finance Committee, OLA College of Education, Cape Coast.
• Member, Technical Committee on Tertiary Education Reforms in Ghana, January 2017.
• Member, Education and Programme Accreditation & CPDs Committee, Ghana Psychology Council.
• Member, Board of Directors; Joining Hands Foundation.
- Member, Central Regional Media Advisory Committee, (CRMAC).
• Member, Planning & Resources Committee, University of Cape Coast, August 2016.
• Member, Academic Board, University of Cape Coast, August.
• Member, Atlantic Hall Council, 2014 – 2016.
• Member, Board of Trustees, University of Cape Coast Students’ Emergency Relief Fund (SERF), August 2013.
• Member, Board of Governors, University Practice Senior High School. 2006 – 2010.
• Editor-In-Chief, The Oguaa Educator, Journal of College of Education Studies, University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast.
• Member, Editorial Board, Journal of Educational Development & Practice (JED-P), Institute of Education, University of Cape Coast.
• Consulting Editor, Institute Journal of Studies in Education, Institute of Education, University of Ilorin, Ilorin, Nigeria.
• National Vice President, UCC Alumni Association, 2015 - 2021.
• Acting National Secretary, UCC Alumni Association, September 2005 – April 2015.
• Senior Hall Tutor, Atlantic Hall, University of Cape Coast. 1st August 2014 –31st July 2016.
• Hall Tutor, Atlantic Hall, University of Cape Coast. January 2014 - July 2014.
• UCC Representative on Pentecost University College Board.
• UCC Representative on Governing Council, OLA College of Education, Cape Coast
• UCC Representative on Kings University College Board, 2017.
• Patron, Methodist Guild, Wesley Cathedral, Cape Coast
• Patron, Methodist Guild, Rev. Gaddiel Acquaah Mem. Methodist Church, Abakrampa
• Patron, Methodist Choir, Rev. Gaddiel Acquaah Mem. Methodist Church, Abakrampa
• Patron, University Practice Old Students Association, UCC Branch.
• Patron, Databank Universal Economics School, UCC Branch. April 2009 - August 2010.
• Patron, Atlantic Hall Naval Cadet Corps, UCC. 2008.
On 30th May 2022, Eric was awarded a Fellowship by the Africa Federation of Teaching Regulatory Authorities (AFTRA) “in recognition of distinguished contributions to the development of the teaching profession at the national and international levels”, the fourth (4th) person in Ghana to receive such award since its inception in 2017.
He is a licensed and a certified Counsellor, and member of Ghana Psychological Council (GPC). He is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Administrators and Management Consultants (CIAMC), Ghana where he is a Chartered Public Administrator (ChPA) and Chartered Management Consultant (CMC). He is an Accredited Public Relations (APR) professional of the Institute of Public Relations, Ghana; and a Member of the Chartered Institute of Human Resource Management, Ghana (CIHRM); and other international bodies.
A Local Preacher of the Methodist Church Ghana since 1995, Eric is married to Margaret, a Chief Nursing and Midwifery Officer of the Central Region and blessed with two young adults, Eric Junior and Peggy-Sonia.
Professor Nyarko-Sampson was appointed as Vice-Chancellor of the University of Environment and Sustainable Development, in Somanya, on 1st June 2020 where he currently serves as the Foundation Vice-Chancellor.
ABSTRACT
Career decision-making is one of the critical issues in considering the career development of any individual. Career is not merely a job, but it is about embracing ideas of planned and structured advancement that lead to career development. Thus, careers are unique, and individuals are regarded as having an active role to play in their own career development. And that individuals have constructs that embody their occupational identity and desired goals (career aspirations). The ability of an individual to choose a career that matches his/her interests, capabilities, and skills is adequate enough to result in job satisfaction, increased production and meeting organizational objectives whilst reducing organizational accidents and increased employee turnover. The youth form a bulk of the world’s population, and Ghana, particularly. At the cross-roads in life, most youth experience periods of career indecision, career indecisiveness, and re career undecided, if not for life. The youth are full of potentials for exploration and exploitation of any country’s resources; human and material, towards national development. On the other hand, an idle youth corps with seeming no future due to unemployment is a scare, a national security threat that has often exploded in uprising furthered by the youth. The youth could then lay the golden egg for national development, and yet be the black sheep of national development. So assisting the youth carve out a career for themselves using professional assistance and psychological tools should be encouraged in schools and communities in Ghana.
In his inaugural lecture, Eric takes his audience through his personal experiences as he navigates through the world of work as a young person, more specifically through the changing scenes of his life based on the opportunities that opened to him due to his versatility. He finally settles on teaching in the university (which initial training he had received from a college of education and having taught at a Junior High School earlier), which has brought him to the pinnacle of his area of specialization; guidance and counselling. Lack of, or inadequate guidance and counselling in schools is one of the major causes of the rising wave of crime, increased indiscipline in schools, drug abuse, increasing HIV/AIDS cases, increasing number of street children and high school drop-out rates. Guidance and counselling has a strategic role to play, particularly as it provides wider access to information which is more transparently and coherently organised. The lecture takes a look at the need for the implementation of guidance services at all levels of education through properly set out School Guidance Programmes (SGPs), Career Guidance Officers/Counsellors and School Counsellors; persons who are trained, qualified and licensed as such. By so doing, the country stands the advantage of benefitting in the future from its young population.
In the lecture, he argues for a national policy on career guidance; career guidance embedded in different contexts such as in schools, universities, training institutions, public employment services and workplaces. He concludes that career is planned, well planned to bring out the best in the individual, and must not be treated in a hit-or-miss way, or water-will-find-its-level way. To assist our young people unearth and unleash their innate potentials to assist in nation building and national development, there is the need to have a schedule across educational institutions and communities to offer such assistance. Careers should evolve from the individuals taking into consideration their abilities, characteristics, and not imposed on them. He recommends among other things, a framework for a national career guidance, and the finalization and implementation of the National Policy on Guidance and Counselling.