Guidance and counseling as a measure to maintain discipline in public primary schools in Nyandarua South district, Kenya

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate guidance and counseling as a measure to maintain discipline in public primary schools in Nyandarua South District Kenya. The following were the specific objectives of the study: To determine the importance of guidance and counseling services in Nyandarua South District primary schools. To determine the pupils perception of the guidance and counseling role in primary schools. To establish the provision of physical facilities for guidance and counseling in schools and to assess level of counseling in primary schools in Nyandarua South District. This study adopted a descriptive survey on what was already happening on the ground without manipulation of responses. The study targeted forty primary schools in Nyandarua south district. The district was divided into three zones with a total population of 520 teachers and a total Number of 18,800 pupils. Twenty head teachers and twenty guidance and counseling teachers were sampled for the study. 40 pupils were also randomly selected for the study. The study employed stratified random sampling techniques. This method was employed to ensure equal chance of selection of schools based on school size. Purposeful sampling was used for all head teachers in all primary school simple random sampling was used in schools with more than one stream to select two respondents among the pupils in class eight. Questionnaires were used as the research instruments. A questionnaire for each category of respondent in the study was produced. There were questionnaires for head teachers guidance and counseling teachers and the pupils. The researcher sought permission to conduct the research from the national council of science and technology through the district education officer Nyandarua south district and the district commissioner Nyandarua South District. The data collected was analyzed using statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) The difference between the respondents who agreed that guidance and counseling is an effective way of maintaining discipline among pupils and those who said that guidance and counseling was not an effective way of maintaining discipline among pupils was small standing at 56.25% and 43.75% respectively. This indicated that there was need for more orientations on guidance and counseling needs among the headteachers. Headteachers and teachers need to be made more aware of guidance and counseling roles among the pupils. Pupils perception on guidance and counseling was that guidance and counseling was good and effective in maintaining discipline in the schools 62.5% agreed that guidance and counseling was good and helpful to the needy pupils 6.25% agreed that guidance and counseling was not good and did not change pupils behavior. Another 31.25% said guidance and counseling does not work especially with large numbers of pupils From the findings, public schools do not have physical facilities for guidance and counseling 62.5% said they did not have physical facilities xvi such as rooms. Only 37.5% of respondents said that they had rooms where guidance and counseling could be done. The respondents said that there was guidance and counseling in public primary schools 78.13% of the pupils reported that guidance and counseling existed in their schools. Only 21.87% of the pupils denied presence of guidance and counseling programmes in their schools. Pupils also need to consult their guidance and counseling teachers and other teachers whenever they have issues. They should be made aware of the need to open up in order to benefit from guidance and counseling services