Institutional Factors Influencing Provision of Guidance and Counselling Services in Secondary Schools in Starehe District, Nairobi County

Abstract

The provision of guidance and counseling services for students in Kenya has been recognized by government policy. This study therefore sought to assess factors influencing provision of guidance and counseling service in promoting discipline among students in secondary schools. Descriptive survey design was adopted in the study. The study also targeted two Education Officers in the district, 11 head teachers, 11 Head of Department, 44 guiding and counseling teachers and 1,244 students in their final year making a total of 1322 respondents. The sample size of the study was 149 respondents who included select 125 student, 2 District Education Officers, 11 head teachers and guidance and counseling teacher. To enhance validity, of the instrument. The researcher used two data collection tools namely, interview schedules and questionnaire schedules .The researcher had the instrument appraised by the supervisors and pilot tested the same questionnaire. Reliability of the questionnaire using a pilot test was carried out and Crobanch value of 0.8327 was obtained making the instrument reliable. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. Qualitative data were analyzed through content analysis and presented in prose form. Findings indicated that 50% of the teacher respondents indicated that qualifications and experience of the counseling service provider’s affects provision of guiding and counseling in promoting discipline among student in school to a very great. Majority 93% of the respondents indicated that provision of guiding and counseling services was affected by inadequate resources. Considering the findings of this study, it was concluded that guidance and counseling services were poorly provided in secondary schools. It can be concluded that the quality of the provision of school guidance and counseling services in Kenya secondary schools is negatively affected by the lack of both human and material resources. The study conclude that lack of training of school counsellors in guidance and counseling services planning needs assessment and evaluation to improve services delivery. The study concludes that high workload for guidance and counseling teachers hindered provision of guidance and counseling services. Schools should sensitize the students on the importance of guidance and counseling services in the management of student discipline. The school administrators should solicit active co-operation of guidance and counseling teachers and students interested in guidance and counseling. The study recommend that guidance and counseling teacher should be relieved off administration and non-guidance and counseling services to enable them provide guidance and counseling services. The study investigated the factors influencing provision of guidance and counseling service among the students in secondary school in, Starehe District. A further study should be conducted to establish factor that affect provision of guidance and counseling service