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
Citation
Master of education degreePublisher
University of Nairobii