ABSTRACT
This study investigated the Teacher’s and Students’ perceptions on the Need for Guidance Counsellors in Secondary Schools in Enugu South Local Government Area of Enugu State. The study was designed to find out if teachers and students really understand who the Guidance Counsellor is and the need for them in the schools.
To guide this research, a 20-item questionnaire was formulated for teachers and students. The randomly selected sample of 15 teachers and 45 students was drawn from 6 different schools in Enugu South Local Government Area of Enugu State.
The instrument was administered to the respondents and the results were analyzed using simple percentages.
The findings were summarized: it is seen that the teachers clearly perceive the functions of guidance counsellor in secondary school. The students agreed that there is need for guidance counsellors in secondary schools.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
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.