PERCEPTION OF TEACHERS ON THE EFFECTIVENESS OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING PROGRAM IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

Background of the study: There is a general assumption that the introduction of guidance and counselling in secondary school systems would enable everybody to appreciate the significance of guidance and counseling in the school system. Essien (1998) pointed out the need for the establishment of guidance and counselling programme in the Nigerian school. In spite of this recognition, these seem to slow progress in the availability of guidance programme in Nigerian secondary schools. The National policy on Education (1998) has emphasized on the need for guidance programme in our secondary schools, but in most secondary schools, the counselors or career master is only given the assignment of counseling duties as a part-time assignment while teaching duties are emphasized for such officers. From time immemorial, man has always needed some form of guidance in order to properly manage life issues. In the days of old, young people received guidance concerning life issues and this was known as informal or traditional education. In Africa, this traditional type of guidance was administered by families, priests and church leaders.

 According to Anagbogu (1988.1), traditional guidance was a means “to direct, lead, guide, pilot, show, inform, advise, help and instruct”. The people were guided or protected by “Ikoro”, Ekwe” or “Talking Drum” when a message need to be passed or danger was imminent; it was by this medium that they passed information across each village. Modern counselling originated from USA in 1909.

Guidance and Counselling is one of the developments in the field of education in Nigeria. It became popular in Nigeria with the introduction of the 6-3-3-4 educational system in 1982. It is generally accepted that in Nigeria, the organized formal guidance stated in 1959 at St. Theresa’s College, Oke Ado in Ibadan through certain reverend sisters, out of concern for the graduates of their school. They felt that there was need to offer vocational guidance to their outgoing final-year students because it would help them with their life outside school to become productive to themselves and the society.

 As a result of these, the reverend sisters invited twenty educated people from Ibadan community from different professions to speak to the students. Since they were professionals, they knew more about the emerging world of work than the students and the reverend sisters. Fifty-four out of the sixty students benefited from the experts’ advice and were placed in various jobs. The innovation was highly accepted by the society because in later years, this group of people, though not trained counsellors, organized career talks, seminars, guidance workshops and lectures for the class five students. Later on, the vocational guidance services spread to other secondary schools outside Ibadan and across the entire federation.

The Ministry of Education officials became so interested in these organized services that the group of “Career Advisers” was invited to provide career workshops for teachers and career masters. Eventually, the term “Career Advisers” became a national issue. In an attempt to overhaul the old educational system and steer it towards the needs of the nation, the Nigeria Educational Research Council (NERC), now called the Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), organized a conference on curriculum development in September, 1969.

This curriculum conference was followed by a government- sponsored National Seminar in 1973, under the chairmanship of Chief S.O. Adebo to deliberate on all aspects of a National Policy on Education using the report of the 1969 curriculum conference as the working document. There was need for the curriculum to emphasis the aspect of students’ adequate preparation for life after school. The conference produced recommendation for a new National Policy on Education which the Federal Government accepted and published in 1977; it has been revised in 1981, 1989 and 2004 respectively.

With the highlighted changes in the nation’s educational system, the need for guidance and counselling services in Nigerian secondary schools become more glaring. Consequently, guidance and counselling services became an integral and essential component of the educational process for all students as they progress through the formal educational system.

In recognition of the need for guidance services in secondary schools, Iwuama (1999) stated, “we are conscious of the climaxed need for guidance services in the life of the child at the secondary stage which fairly corresponds with his pre-adolescent and adolescent stages of development”. The emphasis here is on the 3:3 educational systems, which implies three years in junior secondary school and three years in senior secondary school. The former is meant to be both pre-vocational and academic while the latter is more comprehensive, comprising the core curriculum designed to broaden student’s knowledge. Therefore, the services of guidance counsellor are needed for the achievement of the students’ goals as well as educational objectives. The goals and educational objective of the students are:

 From time immemorial, man has always needed some form of guidance in order to properly manage life issues. In the days of old, young people received guidance concerning life issues and this was known as informal or traditional education. In Africa, this traditional type of guidance was administered by families, priests and church leaders.

 According to Anagbogu (1988.1), traditional guidance was a means “to direct, lead, guide, pilot, show, inform, advise, help and instruct”. The people were guided or protected by “Ikoro”, Ekwe” or “Talking Drum” when a message need to be passed or danger was imminent; it was by this medium that they passed information across each village. Modern counselling originated from USA in 1909.

Guidance and Counselling is one of the developments in the field of education in Nigeria. It became popular in Nigeria with the introduction of the 6-3-3-4 educational system in 1982. It is generally accepted that in Nigeria, the organized formal guidance stated in 1959 at St. Theresa’s College, Oke Ado in Ibadan through certain reverend sisters, out of concern for the graduates of their school. They felt that there was need to offer vocational guidance to their outgoing final-year students because it would help them with their life outside school to become productive to themselves and the society.

 As a result of these, the reverend sisters invited twenty educated people from Ibadan community from different professions to speak to the students. Since they were professionals, they knew more about the emerging world of work than the students and the reverend sisters. Fifty-four out of the sixty students benefited from the experts’ advice and were placed in various jobs. The innovation was highly accepted by the society because in later years, this group of people, though not trained counsellors, organized career talks, seminars, guidance workshops and lectures for the class five students. Later on, the vocational guidance services spread to other secondary schools outside Ibadan and across the entire federation.

The Ministry of Education officials became so interested in these organized services that the group of “Career Advisers” was invited to provide career workshops for teachers and career masters. Eventually, the term “Career Advisers” became a national issue. In an attempt to overhaul the old educational system and steer it towards the needs of the nation, the Nigeria Educational Research Council (NERC), now called the Nigeria Educational Research and Development Council (NERDC), organized a conference on curriculum development in September, 1969.

This curriculum conference was followed by a government- sponsored National Seminar in 1973, under the chairmanship of Chief S.O. Adebo to deliberate on all aspects of a National Policy on Education using the report of the 1969 curriculum conference as the working document. There was need for the curriculum to emphasis the aspect of students’ adequate preparation for life after school. The conference produced recommendation for a new National Policy on Education which the Federal Government accepted and published in 1977; it has been revised in 1981, 1989 and 2004 respectively. Due to this, the guidance services have focused much of recent on the objective of psychological growth that is to aid students to learn how to make comprehensive decisions, enhance personal development, liberate students and to meet the peculiar needs of the students for individual learning. The problem that Nigerian secondary schools are currently facing in this era of science and technology are numerous, such as mass failure in school and public examination, examination malpractice, indiscipline, over population and decline in social norms and values. Faced with this problem, secondary school therefore needs an established and effective guidance and counseling programmer to be managed by trained counselors.

The meaning of the title counsellor remains a puzzle in some quarters such question as the counselors a teachers, an administrator, a principal are asked. The counsellor is a very different person to place within the professional hierarchy of the school personnel. The trained school counsellor therefore is someone who possesses the skill and qualities that could facilitate the decision making activity of both students and parents. The counselors work is that of growth, of change of personal expansion in a world that does not always make sense. The counselors are therefore placed on highly unusual position unlike most of his colleague who are placed under direct supervision (Dengal 1983). The school administrators including teachers are sometimes ignorant of the need for guidance services in their school because, they sometimes see the school counselor as a threat to their status as the head of the school.