Influence of Guidance and Counselling on Students’ Discipline in Public Secondary Schools in Okpokwu Local Government Area, Benue State Nigeria
Chapter One
Objectives of the study
To fulfil the purpose of the study the following objectives were examined:
- To determine the extent to which provision of guidance and counselling materials influences students’ counselling in Okpokwu Local Government Area.
- To establish the extent to which teacher-counsellors’ exposure to training influences students’
- To determine the influence of training of peer counselling on students’ discipline.
- To establish the extent to which guest speakers on guidance and counselling influences students’
- To determine the extent to which the time allocated to student counselling influences students’
CHAPTER TWO
LITERATURE REVIEW
Introduction
This chapter covered the concept of education, guidance and counselling, historical development and the need for guidance and counselling and types of Counselling. It had also government involvement in guidance and counselling, the counsellor and counselling, the role of principals in discipline management in schools, guidance and counselling programme and discipline in secondary schools, personal and social guidance and approaches to counselling. The other sections of the chapter included challenges facing the school management in implementing guidance and counselling, theoretical framework, conceptual framework and the summary of literature review
Concept Of Education, Guidance and Counselling
In his article, Njagi (2017), quotes a teacher, Melania who describes education as a process. She is quoted as saying education “is a system of passing on and acquiring knowledge, experience, values and skills. It is a lifelong process”. In distinguishing between African indigenous education system and the modern European system she says that African indigenous education was informal but integrated and comprehensive. Its concern was character formation and dissemination of holistic values, while the modern education system is about memory and passing examinations with less emphasis for character and unique value formation (Hanish & Guerra, 2016).
Collins (2012) says that guidance and counselling is important because it provides an insight on working knowledge, skills and attitudes. It is necessary to assist young people to be disciplined and be able to deal with challenges and realities they face in their ever changing environment, understand themselves, their academic social and physical environment, realize their potentials, as well as identify opportunities in a world where chances for further training, employment and advancement continue to dwindle. Learners are counselled to alter any maladjusted behaviour. Since most citizens are involved in education process directly or indirectly, the impact of guidance and counselling is real to them (Kombo & Trump, 2016).
Historical development and the need for guidance and counselling
By the end of the 19th century guidance and counselling gathered momentum in Europe and United States of America. Systematic work was done by George Merrill in 1885 at California University. Other contributors to this were Godwin (1911), Weaver (1912) and Davis (1913), (Internet source). In Britain counselling of various kinds came to be offered within the school and college systems in the 1920’s as career guidance for young people to adjust to the demands of college life. Witmer (2013) says that African traditions and cultures guided youth in social roles, values, belief system, sex, regimental roles and skills they would need to enhance their culture. As society is dynamic, there are rapid social and economic changes that affect the students in our schools. The adolescents in schools find it difficult to cope with the challenges that come due to their physical, psychological and emotional changes coupled with the rapid changes in the society. It is often difficult for them to make decisions since the traditional setting is no longer in place (Lang, 2013).
According to Muithya (2016), in the traditional African society, character formation was achieved through intense formal and informal programme of guidance and counselling. Makinde (2014) notes that guidance and counselling has been an essential part of every society and each society had its own sources of wisdom which controlled and regulated social interactions. He states that in African society’s provision of guidance and counselling was effected through identified people to whom members could turn to when necessary.
The role of guidance and counselling in the administration and management of student discipline in Nigeria has been recognized by the various government policy documents since independence. The “Report of the National Committee on Educational Objectives and Policies of 1976” recommended that guidance and counselling be taught using subjects like Religious Education, Social Education and Ethics to enable the school promote the growth of self-discipline among students (Republic of Nigeria, 1976). Despite this recommendation, the use of guidance and counselling services was still wanting in helping curb indiscipline in schools, which was increasing. Infractions that require guidance and counselling include assault, arson, fighting, and theft, and vandalism, destruction of school stores, administration blocks, libraries, harassment, riots and rape and loss of lives. In 1980, recorded cases of schools that experienced these cases of indiscipline were 22 (0.9%). This increased to 187 (7.2%) in 1990 (Simatwa, 2017).
Guidance and counselling has been conceptualized as a programme of activities which has provided us with the gateway out of the existing numerous problems in our present age of complex scientific and technological development (Okobiah and Okorodudu 2014).
The UNESCO module on guidance and counselling (2000a) also posited that Guidance is a programme of services to individuals based on their needs and the influence of environmental factors. Guidance and counselling is a professional field which has a broad range of activities, programmes and services geared toward assisting individuals to understand themselves, their problems, their school environment and their world and also to develop adequate capacity for making wise choices and decisions. There is agreement among experts that there are three major components of guidance and counselling. These are educational guidance, vocational guidance and personal social guidance (Lutomia & Sikolia, 2016)).
CHAPTER THREE
RESEARCH METHODOLOGY
Introduction
This section focused on the methodology that was used in the study. It dealt with research design, location of the study, target population, sampling techniques and sample size, research instruments, validity of instruments, reliability of instruments, data collection procedures and data analysis techniques.
Research design
Orodho, (2013) describes research design as the scheme, outline or plan that is used to generate answers to research problems. This study employed descriptive survey design. Borg and Gall (2019), explains that descriptive study determines and reports the way things are and commonly involves assessing attitude, opinions towards individuals, organizations and procedures. In qualitative methods, the knowledge claims used by researchers are primarily based on constructivist perspectives – such as the different meanings of individuals’ life experiences, historically and socially constructed meanings.
Alternatively, qualitative research could also make knowledge claims based on advocacy/participatory perspectives – such as collaborative or issue-oriented). Sometimes, researchers use both. Strategies of inquiry in the qualitative method are case studies, grounded theory studies, ethnographies, phenomenology, or narratives. The researcher typically gathers responses to open-ended queries with the main objective of deriving themes from these data. The scenarios in qualitative research are those wherein the researcher aims to establish the meanings of various phenomenon’s based on the participants’ perspectives. A fundamental aspect of qualitative research is that the investigator observes participants’ behaviours by joining the latter’s activities (Creswell, 2013). On the other hand, researchers could also examine issues like oppression of individuals. To collect data, the researcher used a narrative approach wherein the participants were able to openly discuss how they had personally encountered oppression. The many benefits of the qualitative method include, (i) its employability at “simplifying and managing data without destroying complexity and context;” (ii) it builds on existing traditions; (iii) qualitative data may be coded quantitatively (Nuttal, Shankar & Beverland, 2011; Atieno, 2019, p. 17). Some of the shortcomings of the qualitative data are: it does not attempt to assign frequencies to linguistic features that are identified in the data and ambiguities (Atieno, 2019).
Descriptive survey design was relevant to this study because the study sought to collect data from respondents about their opinions on the influence of guidance and counselling on the discipline of secondary school students and the support given by the principals to G&C in Okpokwu Local Government Area, Benue State.
Target population
Target population also known as universe population is a group of elements such individuals, objects or items from which samples are taken for measurement. From information obtained in the office of the A.E.O, Okpokwu
Division comprises of 20 public secondary schools and each school has a principal and a Head of Department (H.O.D) teacher-counsellor. The target population were principals, teacher- counsellors and form four candidates for reliable information on guidance and counselling services offered in their schools. In this study, 20 principals, 20 teacher counsellors and a total of 720 students of form four candidates were used by the researcher.
CHAPTER FOUR
DATA ANALYSIS AND INTERPRETATION
Introduction
The main objective of the study was to establish the influence of guidance and counselling services on students’ discipline in public secondary schools in Okpokwu Local Government Area, Benue State. From the analysed data it was found that educational level of school administrators’ positively impacted on the delivery of guidance and counselling services. Most of the principals were males in the age bracket of 40-49 years and all agreed that guidance and counselling was important in secondary schools. Most of the parents had attained secondary level education and hence could easily guide their students. The greatest benefits of guidance and counselling to students in solving problems as well discipline of observance.
CHAPTER FIVE
SUMMARY, CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Introduction
The chapter provides the summary of the findings from chapter four, and it also gives the conclusions and recommendations of the study based on the objectives of the study. The objectives of this study were to evaluate the influence of guidance and counselling services on students’ discipline in public secondary schools in Okpokwu Local Government Area, Benue State. The findings would lead to conclusions on how best to maintain discipline through guidance and counselling services.
Summary of findings
The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of guidance and counselling services on public secondary schools students’ discipline in Okpokwu Local Government Area, Benue State. Descriptive survey design was applied to this study because it sought to collect data from respondents about their opinions on the influence of guidance and counselling on the discipline of secondary school students and the support given by the principals to G&C in Okpokwu Local Government Area, Benue State. The main administrative roles of a principal in delivering guidance and counselling services in the school are facilitating the workshops of the H.O.D, budget for the department during school budget, appoint and motivate teacher counsellors and provide necessary facilities and resources. The study found out that the majority of the principals considered guidance and counselling services to be important in secondary schools. All the teachers indicated that guidance and counselling services were offered in the schools especially for educational matters. The principals agreed that through guidance and counselling comprehensive advice on career / courses is given to students. The principals agreed that through guidance and counselling services there are less personal problems among the students. The principals were of the view that guidance and counselling services had enabled students to be well disciplined with improved academic performance. Some principals were undecided that the absence of adequate guidance and counselling facilities does not often lead to poor provision of guidance and counselling services to students. Also some were undecided that guidance and counselling is not only better provided by competent teacher counsellors but even by other teachers and they disagreed that the school administration is the main contributor to good or bad discipline to students. This shows that the services can even be offered by other competent teachers.
The main issues hindering guidance and counselling due to lack of resources in the school were lack of privacy since there was no guidance and counselling offices. They lacked funds to sponsor the guest speakers and attend workshops. The study found out that most of the students indicated that they benefited from guidance and counselling in school in learning, they also indicated that they benefited from guidance and counselling in school in relationships and in problem solving. Most students preferred peer counselling to teacher counselling and all acknowledged the usefulness of guidance and counselling in their school life.
Conclusions
The study concludes that guidance and counselling is important in secondary schools and was offered in the schools. Guidance and counselling services offered were educational guidance, career guidance and psychological and social guidance. Through guidance and counselling comprehensive advice on career / courses is given to students. There are less personal problems among the students in the school and students were well disciplined with improved academic performance as a result of guidance and counselling. The student inventory, bulletins on different topics, handbooks for different educational opportunities, books on social psychology, psychology magazines was available. Main administrative roles of a Principal in delivering guidance and counselling services in the school are facilitating the workshop of the H.O.D, budget for the department during school budget, appoint and motivate teacher counsellors and providing necessary facilities and resources for the guidance and counselling services.
Lack of cooperation from administration, students’ unwilling to discuss their problems are as a serious challenge and heavy teaching load for the teacher- counsellor seam a serious challenge. Main issues hindering guidance and counselling were lack of resources in the school, lack of privacy since there were no guidance and counselling offices. They lacked funds to sponsor the guest speakers and attend seminars. The students benefited from guidance and counselling services especially in areas of learning, relationships and problem solving and discipline observance. Students indicated that they preferred to go for counselling to the peer counsellor
A voice can bring a lot of impact and is the energy to propel someone’s passion as well as providing an opportunity to rise above the rest and make a difference. Someone may get encouraged to be extraordinary and do commendable work.
Recommendations
The researcher recommends the following;
- i) The principals in secondary schools to put in place guidance and counselling services and provide an office where privacy is made a priority. This will encourage more students to visit the
- Guidance and counselling teachers should be well trained on how to carry out their duties by being sent to attend many seminars and workshops to improve on their skills.
- For adequate provision of guidance and counselling materials as well as application of peer counselling, there ought to be proper budgeting for the same in terms of finances and time
- iv) There is need to invite guest speakers who will provide the counselling services to the students in areas of
vi). Student inventory, bulletins on different topics, handbooks for different educational opportunities, books on social psychology, psychology magazines should be provided to the school to improve the department.
Suggestions for further research
Based on the findings of the study, there are areas which require to be studied in order to improve the influence of guidance and counselling on the discipline of students. This study was carried out in Okpokwu Local Government Area in Benue State which is predominantly local oriented.
- It is therefore suggested that a replication of this study be carried out in an urban
- The researcher recommends a study on student discipline in relation to parent or guardian upbringing to be carried
- There is need to have a study on the influence of minimal integration of guidance and counselling in selected subjects in the curriculum. The objective is to curb the long standing problem of lack of time to practice guidance and counselling.
- The intention of integrating guidance and counselling in the curriculum is to ensure students move up the educational ladder with guidance and counselling
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