| dc.description.abstract | The purpose of this research project was to investigate the effectiveness of guidance and
counseling program on students’ behavior in public and private secondary schools in Meru South
Sub-County. The study was guided by the following research objectives. To determine the factors
that affects the effectiveness of guidance and counseling program on students’ behavior in public
and private secondary schools in Meru South Sub-County. To determine the effects of guidance
and counseling program on students’ behaviour in public and private secondary schools in Meru
South Sub-County. To establish the effect of peer guidance and counseling program on student’s
behavior in public and private secondary schools in Meru South Sub-County and to establish the
challenges faced by teacher’s guidance and counseling program in public and private secondary
schools in Meru South Sub-County. The ministry of education due to rampant indiscipline in
many secondary schools in the republic of Kenya in 2001, undertook a research to find out
the courses of unrest, and some of the heinous acts committed by students, for instance the St
Kizito in Embu which claimed the lives of 19 girls, Nyeri High School where 4 prefects were
burnt to death , Kyanguli incident in Machakos where 68 students were burnt. The research
design used was descriptive survey and a random sampling approaches to select the participants
from the target population. The research instrument used was the questionnaire type which
included open and closed headed questions which the researcher used to collect data. This study
used simple random sampling to get 91 respondents as it was the ease of assembling the sample
of both public and private secondary schools in Meru South Sub-County. It was from the target
populations of 55 Secondary schools, from which 53 were public and 2 were private secondary
schools. The total number of boys in public secondary schools was 7,087 while that of girls were
7,103. The number of teachers in public secondary schools were 435 while in private secondary
schools were 27, that the researcher used to sample the 15 public secondary schools comprising
of 15 guidance and counseling teachers and 60 peer student counselors, while from the private
secondary school the researcher sampled the 2 private secondary schools from which 8 guidance
and counseling teachers and 8 peer student counselors were selected. The sampled 17 secondary
school brought forth 23 guidance and counseling teachers and 68 peer student counselors
bringing a total of 91 respondents to participate in the study. Data was collected, put into a
computer analysis, coded, classified and converted into meaningful categories and analyzed,
using a computer statistical package for social scientist program (spss). The following were the
major findings from the study. That the effectiveness of Guidance and Counseling program in
both public and private secondary schools were affected by lack of resources, inadequate training
of teacher and negative attitude of both teachers and students. That the ministry of Education,
science and technology (MOEST) lacked proper and clear stipulated policies of guidance and
counseling program. That the teacher guidance and counselors had much work load which
hindered them from rendering guidance and counseling services effectively. Schools
administration did not fully support guidance and counseling program hence killing the morale of
guidance and counseling teachers. The study concluded that the Government, through the
ministry of education, science and technology should equip teachers with relevant guidance and
counseling skills. That the Principals and managers should allocate guidance and counseling time
in the school time tables. This study suggested the following area for further research. The role of
the head teachers in guidance and counseling program on student behavior in public and private
secondary schools in the entire Meru South Sub-County. | en_US |
