Nature of guidance and counselling services supporting the academic life of pupils in selected secondary schools of Kazungula district, Zambia.
Date
2020
Authors
Munsanda, Gift
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
The University of Zambia
Abstract
The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of guidance and counselling services in learners’ academic life in five (5) selected secondary schools of Kazungula District. This study had three objectives: to assess the nature of guidance and counseling services provided in the selected secondary schools: establish the challenges faced by school and guidance teachers and pupils in providing services in study secondary schools and to examine challenges guidance and counseling teachers encounter in delivering guidance and counselling services in the study schools. A descriptive research design was used in this study and data was analyzed using both quantitative and qualitative approaches. Sixty-five (65) respondents participated. They consisted of five (05) Head teachers, and five (05) Deputy Head teachers, (10) guidance and counselling teachers, fifteen (15) regular teachers and (30) pupils. The head teachers, deputy head teachers, guidance and counselling teachers were selected using purposive sampling technique while regular teachers and 30 pupils were selected using simple random sampling technique. Qualitative data will be analyzed using descriptive thematic statistics while quantitative data will be analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) programme and it will be used to create tables, frequency distributions, charts and graphs in order to portray the meaning data. The major findings of the study were that guidance and counselling programmes available included vocation guidance, peer guidance education such as peer education, team teaching,
individual group counselling and student support team planning. It was evident that guidance and counselling services benefited pupils in many different ways and this included enabling pupils to have an upright behavior, pupils tended to improve in their academic performance, pupils stayed
away from harmful activities such as sexual practices and so on. The study also established that there was lack of proper infrastructure for the guidance and counselling department, lack of trained guidance and counselling teachers, pupils were not encouraged to attend counselling sessions, no enough guidance and counselling programme and no specific allocated time for students to attend counselling services. The solution put forth to curb the challenges of the study included that there was need to provide trained guidance and counselling teachers, need to construction proper infrastructure for guidance and counselling services, need for the allocation of time to offer counselling services to all the students, need of formulating proper guidance and counselling programmes for students, need of encouraging students to access guidance and counselling services and the need for the provision of guidance and counselling materials. Based on the findings of the study, recommendations that school administrators should make strong efforts to construct specific blocks for guidance and counselling activities; have specific time for pupils to attend guidance and counselling services should be created at curriculum level. The Ministry of Education should organize in-service trainings for guidance and counselling
teachers in order to carry out their responsibilities more effectively.
Description
Thesis of Master of Science in Counselling.