The Role of Guidance and Counselling in Creating Security Awareness and Consciousness Among Nigerian Students
Chapter One
The purpose of the study
The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of guidance and counselling services on students’ security awareness and consciousness in High school, Port Harcourt.
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 High school.
- To establish the extent to which teacher-counsellors’ exposure to training influences students’
- To determine the role of training of peer counselling on students’
- 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
The notion of education, guidance and counseling, historical development, the need for guidance and counseling, and different sorts of counseling were all explored in this chapter. Additionally, it included the role of staff in managing security awareness and consciousness in schools, the counselor and counseling, the guidance and counseling program and security awareness and consciousness in schools, as well as personal and social guidance and counseling techniques. The chapter’s other sections covered the difficulties the school administration will have in adopting counseling and guidance, as well as the theoretical and conceptual frameworks and an overview of the literature.
Conceptual Review
The Concept of Guidance and Counseling
According to Birichi and Rukunga (2009), guidance and counseling is a practice that has been around for a very long time and has been passed down from one generation to the next. Counseling and guidance are two terms with overlapping but distinct meanings. They can’t really be separated from one another because of how closely they are related. Furthermore, Mutie and Ndambuki (2002) noted that there is a perception that people are fundamentally autonomous beings. That implies that humans have the capacity to determine their own fate and bear complete responsibility for their deeds, and that they have an inbuilt yearning for autonomy, independence, and self-destruction.
According to (Birichi and Rukunga, 2009), the main objective of guidance and counseling is to help people understand themselves in order to deal with life experiences in a healthy manner. To do this, people must be able to identify the causes of problems and seek out appropriate solutions or ways to avoid the circumstances that could result in unhealthy lifestyles. Ajowi and Simatwa (2010) underlined the importance of guidance and counseling services in managing people’s behavior in all societies.
Overview of Guidance and Counseling Programme
At the start of the 20th century, a push for vocational assistance gave rise to the profession of school counseling in the United States. There is evidence to suggest that some of the techniques and skills of modern-day guidance and counseling were used by catholic priests in the middle ages, as can be seen by the dedication to the concept of confidentiality within the confessional, even though a case can be made for tracing the roots of counseling and guidance principles to ancient Greece and Rome with the philosophical teaching of (Plato & Aristotle, Schellenberg, 2007). One of the earliest texts describing possible careers was published. Tomaso Garzoni’s 1626 work The Universal Plaza of All the Professions of the World, as cited in Schellenberg (2007).
Guidance and counseling in the educational sector in Tanzania and some other African nations is recognized as the newest field in many publications and sources. The First International Conference on Guidance, Counseling, and Youth Development in Africa, which took place in Nairobi, Nigeria, from April 22 to 26, 2002, provided evidence of this by pointing out that the program for guidance, counseling, and youth development was first introduced in Africa in April of that year (Biswalo, 1996). The conference’s goal was to create system requirements for guidance and counseling services for school students.
In Nigeria, counseling and guidance are relatively new professions that are still developing their identities. The majority of school counselors are teachers who are appointed to the post of guidance and counseling without any relief from their teaching responsibilities and without receiving any additional compensation (Gysters & Henderson, 2001). This approach is known as a “position” model. Additionally, there is no official organizational structure in place for the delivery of counseling services (Gysbers & Henderson, 2000). The function of the school counselor in Nigeria has become more difficult due to a lack of a clear professional identity, and school counselors are having difficulty defining their position.
Tolbert (2006) defines guidance as the overall program or all the activities and services provided by the school or other institutions that are primarily focused on assessing an individual to help them make and carry out adequate plans and achieve satisfactory adjustment in all aspects of their daily lives. Different schools offer guidance and counseling in different ways.
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, (2003) 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 (1989), 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, 2003). 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, 2009, 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, 2009). Descriptive survey design was relevant to this study because the study sought to collect data from respondents about their opinions on the role of guidance and counselling on the security of school students and the support given by the staffs to G&C in High school, Port Harcourt.
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, High school comprises of 20 secondary schools and each school has a staff and a Head of Department (H.O.D) teacher-counsellor. The target population were staffs, teacher- counsellors and form four candidates for reliable information on guidance and counselling services offered in their schools. In this study, 20 staffs, 20 teachers 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 role of guidance and counselling services on students’ security awareness and consciousness in secondary schools in High school, Port Harcourt. 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 staffs were males in the age bracket of 40-49 years and all agreed that guidance and counselling was important in 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 security 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 role of guidance and counselling services on students’ security awareness and consciousness in secondary schools in High school, Port Harcourt. The findings would lead to conclusions on how best to maintain security through guidance and counselling services.
Summary of findings
The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of guidance and counselling services on secondary schools students’ security awareness and consciousness in High school, Port Harcourt. Descriptive survey design was applied to this study because it sought to collect data from respondents about their opinions on the role of guidance and counselling on the security of school students and the support given by the staffs to G&C in High school, Port Harcourt. The main administrative roles of a staff 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 teachers and provide necessary facilities and resources. The study found out that the majority of the staffs considered guidance and counselling services to be important in schools. All the teachers indicated that guidance and counselling services were offered in the schools especially for educational matters. The staffs agreed that through guidance and counselling comprehensive advice on career / courses is given to students. The staffs agreed that through guidance and counselling services there are less personal problems among the students. The staffs were of the view that guidance and counselling services had enabled students to be well securityd with improved academic performance. Some staffs 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 teachers but even by other teachers and they disagreed that the school administration is the main contributor to good or bad security 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 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 securityd 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 Staff 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 teachers 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 security 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 staffs in schools to put in place guidance and counselling services and provide an office where privacy is made a This will encurage more students to visit the office.
- 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 respectively.
- iv) There is need to invite guest speakers who will provide the counselling services to the students in areas of
- . 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.
REFERENCES
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- Adimula, D. O. (1988). The attitude of students, teachers, school staffs towards continuous assessment in some of selected schools in Ilorin. An unpublished Ilorin M.Ed. project Department of Guidance and counselling
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