PROBLEMS HINDERING THE EFFECTIVE IMPLEMENTATION OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS

CHAPTER ONE

Background to the Study

The exact genesis of guidance is difficult to establish. However, guidance as an informal service can be said to be as old as man's existence on earth. Throughout the history of mankind, there has been different people and professional who have become confidant and helpers for persons who have sought assistance, helpers for persons who have been less fortunate than others orwho simply needed the comfort of a friend. Guidance within most countries implies a quasi-parental style of steering the child towards behavior or decisions deemed to be for his good. Basically, parents guide their children; teachers guide their pupils, the elder guide the young ones and the more knowledgeable or experienced guide the less knowledgeable or less experienced.

Traditionally as Alutu, (2007) noted; that in the African setting before the emergence of modern guidance, there were para-guidance   professionals,    involve    in    rendering   guidanceService to people within their communities. These include personalities like philosophers, fortunetellerschief   prince teachers, midwives, nurses, social workers, and other influentialindividuals.

However, the educational system handed to Nigeria by the colonial   administration   after independencein 1960 was defective and perhaps attempt making the nation technological backward. The system failed to meet the needsand aspirations of the nation in terms of her manpower requirementsfor national development. The structure of the old educational system was the 6-5,4 system. The curriculum offerings of the system favoured academic excellence more than technological, scientific and vocational know-how.

Since the new national policy on education 6,3,3,4 systems was introduced the Federal government    saw the need for theimplementation of guidance and  counseling services in  school  system, Guidance and counseling programme in schools becomes aregular discussion in the national daily  newspapers, magazines,

This can be delineated from the study carried out in Edo State Comprising the registered public schools practicing counseling and number of schools in Edo State;

The table shows;

No of teachers – 2,494
Population of students; 100286

Source: Post Primary Education Board/Edo State Ministry of Education 2014.

From the table above out of 309 public secondary schools only 32 practicing counselor are potentially disposed to practice counseling. And the high ratio of students to a counselor is another challenge a counselor must face. Of course it must be noted that there, are many students in the Nigerian public school to the number of practicing counselor. In Edo State a population of students (100286) one hundred thousand two hundred and eighty six students. From the figure derived above, it will be frustrating and a total confusion for a few counselor disposed to Edo State public schools to satisfy and fulfill the huge vacuum to meeting all these student's challenges. This is as a result of scarcity of trained guidance personnel for the Nigerian schools (A case study of Edo State).

The high illiteracy rate (lack of proper guidance and Education) take expression in widespread poverty among the women folk and the people of Edo State.

Women folk and the people of Edo State. The quest for quick wealth and easy money has driven some women and girls in Nigeria into the streets and brothels for prostitution in many European cities.

The Nigerian media have been awashed with stories of families in Edo State who have exported their daughters into the illicit sexmarkets in Europe especially Italy”.

(The journal of teacher education and teaching 2004, Pg 4 Vol. 7).

From this fact, it can be recalled that lack of guidance and counseling in our school and in the city of Edo environs can be attributed to this social menance, as most secondary school students drop out of schools to travel abroad for greener pasture instead of completing their education and moving higher academically.

Therefore, in order to realise the goal and objectives of the national policy on educations revised in 1981, 2004 which stated the views of the apparent ignorance of many young school people about   career   prospects    and    in   view   of   the    personalitymaladjustment among students, career officers and counsellors will be appointed in secondary schools since qualified personnel in this category is scarce. Government will continue to make provision for the training of interested teachers in guidance and counseling.

However, there are three major counselling that can be provided to the secondary schools such as educational, vocational and personal social services. The experiences of guidance personal in Edo State and in the other part of Nigeria have revealed so many problem areas hindering the effective implementation of guidance and counselling services in schools. Thus, available literature has not revealed any specific study on the problems hindering the effective implementation of guidance and counselling in Edo State.

It's against this background that prompted the researcher to be motivated to carryout study on problems hindering the effective implementation of guidance and counselling services in secondary school in Edo State. There is need for guidance and counselling insecondary schools. There is also need to find possible solutions to tackle the problem like ensuring experienced and enough qualified professional guidance counsellor recruited and posted to render guidance and counselling services in the secondary schools in the state. The problem of counselling tools, equipments and functional materials should be resolved.

There is need to include guidance and counsellingprogramme in the school time table and enough time should be mapped out for effective counselling in schools. The problem of government attitude towards proper and effective funding of guidance and counselling should be redressed.

STATEMENT OF PROBLEM
Although   guidance   and   counselling   services have   beenintroduced in some secondary schools in Edo State of Nigeria, it islikely that the services rendered is not effective.

However due to shortage of teachers in public schools the Ministry of Education in Edo State redeploy counsellors as teacher's counsellors in these schools.

As Egbochuku 2011, noted that the counsellor instead of carrying out her duty as a counsellor, they are saddled with teaching loads and at all times administrative or clerical duties, struggles to cover the subject outline, thus having their attention divided. These have negatively affected the effective implementation of guidance and counselling in secondary schools. It must also be noted that the profession is still experiencing some problems that are associated with professional growth. Some of these problems are as follows; lack of working tools,

equipment and  counselling  facilities,  unfavorable  governmentattitude, and attitude of the  parent principles’ students and staff also   hinders   effective   implementation   of  guidance and counsellingprogramme in schools,     insufficient    funding,counselors in classroom, inadequate communication bycounsellors  with teachers, students and parents, poortimetabling,  Misconception of the profession, and high ratio ofstudents to counsellor etc.

ACCORDING TO THE NIGERIAN JOURNAL FOR GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING (2009)

The provision for guidance and counseling in Nigerian national policy on education has been an issue of concern to professional counselors for some time now. A critical appraisal of this provision reveals an obvious non-recognition, ignorance and neglect of the crucial contributions of counseling to the achievement of the goals and objectives of the national policy on education. (Nigeria for 2009).

Counseling has been with man since time immemorial, and it has been found to be effective in producing long term results and positive effects.

The NEEDS (2004) document stated that the delivery of education in Nigerian has suffered from years of neglect compounded by inadequate attention to policy framework within the sector. Apart from the death of personnel, especially vocational and technical teachers to run 6-3-3-4 system of education, the insufficient use of guidance and counseling services, students parents non-recognition  of and non-compliance with counseling prescriptions and placements where available for their children contributed immensely to the failure of the system of course, the performance of and individual in any profession or administration of knowledge depends on the quality of guidance and effectiveness of counseling he/she was exposed to during the period of training or grooming (Ireti 2009).

THE CHALLENGING PROBLEMS

The Following Are Obvious

1. Most of the schools have one trained counselor, with students of

about 1500. The counseling activities will no doubt be too burdensome for one counselor. Moreso, as he/she combines counseling tasks with teaching assignments.

2. There are inadequate facilities to facilitate effective counseling – no adequate provision for counseling room/office and material resources for counseling.
3. There is little or no administrative and financial support from the school authority and this definitely will affect the planning and execution of guidance and counseling programs.
4. Most of the schools have untrained counselors, who may not be able to render effective counseling services.
5. Where trained counselors are available, effective counseling services could not be rendered because of the inadequate of facilities. There is little or no provision for individual counseling because of lack of private office accommodation, lack of time on the part of the counselor because of heavy teaching workload etc.
6. Most of the counseling activities carried out by trained counselor centered mostly on subject choice and career choice. These are not even done in depth for the lack of material resources to measure specific traits possessions and some other pertinent things. The only sources of information available to the counselor to work with are the student's result and career talk. Activities like career convention, career excursion, and career exploration are hardly carried out for lack of fund.
7. Counselors in schools are seen as idle hands and so, trained counselors are saddled with irrelevant tasks like collecting and registering continuous assessment executing disciplinary measures (punishment) to the students and running and kinds of errands for the school principals and vice principals.
8. There are no guidance and counseling activities planned for teachers and parents, to carry them along and get them involved in the excursion of guidance and counseling programmes for the students.
9. There is no effective working relationship between the school authorities and the school counselors towards the achievement of the goals of education for the students.
10. In the schools surveyed, organization of guidance and counseling services as expected, thereby eroding the relevance and importance of guidance and counseling services in the school system.

most  secondary schools in Edo State have no guidance counsellors at all, while the few that can be found are in a few schools and result of this negate towards the effective implementation guidance and counseling could it be said that inadequate counselors in  school, lack of workers tools, unfavorable government attitude of parents, principles and students  are factors hindering.

To guide the study, the following researcher questions were generally.

Research Questions

1. To what extent does the availability of tools, equipment and facilities impede on the effective implementation of guidance and counseling services in secondary Schools?
2. To what extent do inadequate counsellors in schools hinder effective implementation of guidance and counselling services in secondary schools?
3. To what extent do financial problems obstruct the

Effective implementation of guidance and counseling programmes in schools?

4. How do the attitudes of other school personnel teacher and principals) hinder the effective implementation of guidance and counseling services in secondary school?
5. How does the student's attitude constitute problems in the effective implementation of guidance and counseling services?

Hypotheses

Ho₁: There is no significant difference on the extent does the availability of working tools and facilities impede on the effective implementation of guidance and counseling services in secondary school (P<0.05).

Ho₂: There is no significant difference in their mean rating of Inadequatecounsellors to effective implementation of guidance and counseling services in secondary schools. (P<0.05)

Ho₃: There is no significant difference in their mean rating oninadequate   financial   problem   to   effective   implementation   ofguidance and counselling in secondary schools.

Ho₄: There is no significant difference in their mean rating on the attitude of their school personnel (teachers and principals) hinder the   effective   implementation   of   guidance   and   services   in secondary schools (P<0.05).

Ho₅: There is no significant difference in their mean rating of the students attitude constitute problems in the effective implementation of guidance and counseling services (P<0.05).

Purpose of the Study

1. Find out the extent that the availability of working tools, equipments
   and functional facilities impede on the implementation of
   guidance and counseling programmes.
2. Find out how the government attitudes hinder effective implementations of guidance and counseling programmes.
3. Find out the extent the attitudes of parents obstruct the smooth organization of guidance and counseling services
4. Find out how the attitude of other school personnel (teacher and Principals) hinder the effective implementation of guidance and counseling programme.
5. Find out how students attitudes constitute problem in the implementation of guidance and counseling services.
6. Identify the strategies or measures that can be employed in the effective implementation of guidance and counseling services in secondary schools, so as to minimize the problems militating against it.

Significance of the Study

The study is to identify the degree of effectiveness of guidance and counseling implementation in secondary schools in Edo State. It will highlight the problems hindering the effective implementation of guidance and counseling services and suggest possible ways of tackling such problems. It will also map out strategies or measures that can be adopted in improving standard services so that the students can achieve maximum benefits from guidance and counseling services as emphasized in the National policy on Education 2004.

SCOPE AND DELIMITATION OF THE STUDY

The study was to examine the major problems or constraints of effective implementation of guidance and counseling in secondary school in Edo State of Nigeria and to identify some measures that could be employed to solve those problems for improving standard. The study was also delimited to practisingcounsellors in public secondary schools in Edo State which is made up of three senatorial districts (Edo South, Cental and North) and comprises eighteen Local Government areas.