GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING IN SCHOOLS

THE CHALLENGES IN THE IMPLEMENTATION OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING PROGRAMMES IN SENIOR HIGH SCHOOLS

There are a number of challenges in the implementation of Guidance and Counselling programmes in Senior High Schools. The details are discussed below:

The major challenge in the implementation of Guidance and Counselling programmes in Senior High Schools is the inability of school authorities to allocate funds for Guidance and Counselling units to facilitate the work of coordinators. As a result, counsellors are not motivated enough to carry out their assigned duties effectively. Sometimes, coordinators are compelled under the given circumstances to use their own money for the purchase of logistics such as books, files, pens etc. There are also Instances where coordinators need money to go for more information that will help in finding solutions to certain problems. Their efforts are usually foiled up if the school cannot afford to fund such trips. 

Another challenge confronting the implementation of guidance and Counselling in Senior High Schools is lack of office accommodation for the coordinators to carry out their work. It is crystal clear that counselling is a one to one helping affair and should be held in an enclosed office. It must be noted that private and confidential matters are often compromised to the public when counselling is done in obscure places. In such places, coordinators find it difficult to elicit the much needed information from students since invitees will not be comfortable giving it out.

There is usually lack of collaboration by staff members to support the efforts of counsellors and coordinators. Some staff members in school for one reason or the other deliberately refuse to attend Guidance and Counselling sessions. Others are time constrained and do not usually turn up for Counselling sessions. This makes it very difficult for the coordinators because sometimes the technical competence of such tutors may be needed to solve or clarify certain issues. For instance, in our African context it becomes very difficult for male teachers to investigate certain issues concerning girls.

An issue arose at Viting Secondary Technical School in Tamale. A student girl accused her colleague of witchcraft. This happened when one early morning; the victim woke up and was not wearing her beads. She was troubled by the fact that the accused her own friend who lay very close to her disappeared in the morning and this made her to believe that the friend was responsible for taking the beads off her waist. The victim believed superstitiously that the accused meant doom for her. When the accused was invited down and interrogated, she denied knowledge and whereabouts of the beads. The Assistant headmaster, the senior housemaster and the guidance and Counselling coordinator were confused on how to handle this seemingly confusing problem.  Upon invitation, it took the housemistress and headmistress a few minutes to solve the problem. The two ladies took the girls inside the dormitory. They asked the victim when she took her bath and where she left her sponge. When she brought out her sponge dish, lo and behold! The beads were inside it. Unknown to the victim, the foam from the soap gave the beads a smooth transition into the sponge when she was bathing the previous night. She kept all these items inside the sponge dish unknowingly. She stood embarrassed and astonished and was asked to apologise to the accused and the two were reconciled.

Generally, there is also lack of cooperation on the part of some parents to honour invitations by counsellors and coordinators. These parents do not honour invitations due to ignorance about the implication of guidance and counselling in the education of their children. Others get so busy with their work schedules and are unable to show up. The absence of parents to volunteer vital information to coordinators leaves a lot of problems at crossroads. At the end, students are left to make wrong choices that will undoubtedly have a telling effect on their lives. In a situation where the coordinator takes up the challenge to solve the problem alone, he or she may end up a monomania with a useless mission. Information is the life blood of any meaningful decision process as such; parents are in the best position to show the strengths and weaknesses of their children.

Counsellors are subject tutors as well. Hence, the time table may not allow them to offer effective counselling services to students. Guidance and Counselling programmes are thus relegated to the background as Coordinators and counsellors have to attend to teaching and other responsibilities.

Lack of professional training on the part of Coordinators and counsellors may have negative impact on students at the receiving end of such services since coordinators do not know the essential elements and core conditions of counselling, they cannot counsel effectively. Students who are left to the mercy of these coordinators will take actions to the detriment of society. In fact, such students cannot make good decisions. They may take actions that are not needed at a particular point in time.

Low patronage and outright rebuff of counselling services by students is one of the major obstacles that impede guidance and counselling efforts in Senior High Schools. The reasons assigned for these are legion. In a number of cases, students believe that counsellors and coordinators are not themselves morally upright. Coordinators with questionably characters may preach virtue and practice vice. Eventually, they will not even serve as role models for students. Students believe firmly that such coordinators easily leak secrets of their colleagues who happen to consult them. Some students do not honour the invitation of counsellors on religious grounds. For example, a Christian student may not go to a Moslem for counselling and in like manner, a Moslem student may not also avail himself before a Christian for counselling services. 

Counsellors and coordinators encounter difficulties in dealing with exceptional students - students who are visually impaired, hearing impaired, mentally retarded and sometimes the exceptionally good ones. These categories of students are difficult to handle. Students with such exceptional problems may not be understood by counsellors and the vice versa. A majority of counsellors may even lack the expertise in special education and the requisite resources to handle them. The fate of these students will be left in sheer despair when the need to counsel arises.

SUGGESTED POSSIBLE SOLUTIONS TO OVERCOME THE IDENTIFIED CHALLENGES

To overcome these challenges discussed, the following solutions are suggested:

1. School authorities must place emphasis on guidance and Counselling by allocating funds to help address the requirements of that unit and thereby facilitate the work of counsellors and coordinators.

2. Schools should also be in a position to offer proper office accommodation to help coordinators work with ease. It is often quoted that for want of a nail the battle was lost. This can be related here to mean that for want of an office the coordinators objective was defeated.

3. Guidance and Counselling is a team effort, therefore staff members should be encouraged to partake and assist in that direction. The remedies to certain problems rest solely with some subject tutors. Schools should motivate their teachers to contribute in that direction.

4. During Parent Teacher Association (PTA) meetings, parents should be educated to appreciate the work of counsellors and coordinators and to cooperate with them when they are invited.

5. Guidance and Counselling is a very important enterprise. As much as possible, Ministry of Education, all implementing agencies of educational policies and Heads of Senior High Schools should endeavour to assign counsellors and coordinators the sole responsibility of guidance and Counselling. They should be made to attend to guidance and Counselling issues only.

6. Coordinators should be sent for professional training to make them full counsellors. This will bring about efficiency in carrying out their assigned duties and responsibilities.

7. Heads of institutions must endeavour to select people who are morally upright to serve as guidance and Counselling coordinators. In deed, somebody students and tutors alike can confide in and hold in confidence. Proper education should be carried out to enable students avail themselves for counselling when the need arises.

8.  As part of their training, coordinators should be taught the rudiments of exceptionalities. As recommended earlier, coordinators who will take up the sole responsibility of Counselling should be sent for training to equip them with knowledge and skills on how to deal with exceptional children.

The clarion call on a daily basis to the effect that all and sundry must rise up to the task of fighting the moral decadence that has eaten deep to the very fabric of society and the call to every one to help find a panacea to the poor standards of education, can begin well and meaningfully with guidance and Counselling services in the forefront of academic affairs in our schools. If these major challenges pointed out are properly addressed, our societies will take a firm foot and will be transformed into a better one for all of us.