Effectiveness of Guidance and Counselling on students' discpline in Kieni West Division, Nyeri District, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to determine the factors that hinder effective guidance and counselling in relation to students' discipline in public secondary schools in Kieni West Division, Nyeri District, Kenya. The researcher endeavoured to find out the need to train teacher counsellors, the physical resources used in schools to promote guidance and counselling programmes, the existence of guidance and counselling committees and problems facing students who require guidance and counselling services. The study adopted descriptive survey and targeted 17 public secondary schools.

All categories of public secondary schools were represented. Questionnaires and interview schedules were used as the study instruments. A total of 10 head teachers, 10 teacher counsellors and 200 form 3 students were sampled. Data was collected and analysed using descriptive statistics with the help of Social Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software. The fmdings were presented in tables and bar graphs The research fmdings revealed that ineffectiveness in guidance and counselling is hindered by inadequate training of the teachers counsellor, lack of enough physical resources, lack of guidance and counselling committees and students negative attitude towards the programme; students also did not trust that teacher counsellors could solve their problems, and hence their refusal to open up.

Based on the fmdings, the study recommended that schools should improve the counselling committee to include parents; they should also have enough facilities to ensure privacy during counselling sessions. Peer counselling should be reinforced while teacher counsellors should be sponsored for more seminars and workshops. Teacher counsellors should improve their skills of handling young people, in particular, maintaining the confidentiality of the information given by the students. More often, young mentors especially old students should be invited for counselling sessions in schools. The study suggested that other studies may done on 1. Impact of guidance and counselling on students discipline and career. 2. Changing students negative attitudes towards guidance and counselling 3. Involving parents in school guidance and counselling programmes. 4. Effectiveness of guidance and counselling on students discipline in private secondary schools.