ABSTRACT
This study investigated effect of guidance and counselling among senior secondary school students in their choice of career in Abeokuta South Local Government Area of Ogun State. The study aimed at finding out the available counselling services in schools, the frequency of access to counselling in schools, and the perception students hold about the role of counsellors in the choice of careers. The descriptive research design was used in this study. Student respondents numbered 349 while 2 counsellors were involved in the study. Questionnaires and an interview guide were used to gather the necessary data for the study. The study revealed that counselling services are available in schools and include educational, vocational, and person-social counselling. Secondly, the study found that students had access to counselling but their frequency of access was inhibited by counsellor characteristics and other factors. Lastly, the study uncovered that students thought counsellors to be central to the process of making career choices. The government, Nigeria Education Services, and school authorities should give much heed to counselling especially career guidance by making resources available to counsellors for work. Career guidance programmes should be routinized in schools for greater benefits to students. Counsellors should also endeavour to seek opportunities for skill upgrade and higher training so that they can become more relevant to the needs of students.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the study
Meaning and Definition of Guidance and Counselling Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary defines guidance as “advice that is given to somebody especially by someone with more experience while counselling “is a professional advice about a problem”. In a literary meaning guidance is the process of helping an individual to understand himself and his environment. According to Adenigbagbe (2011) guidance is the process of directing, assisting, guiding an individual to achieve his/her goals. Adenigbagbe (2011) also define counselling as a professional interaction between a client or individual and a professional counsellor with the aim of assisting the client to voluntarily change his behaviour for more productive one. Several authors have defined guidance and counselling in different various ways.
According to Ferguson (1999) have attempted to clarify the usage of the term by pointing out the word guidance, as a concept, as an educational construct and as an educational service to meet a demand. Counselling, according to English and English (2001) was defines as a relationship in which one-person endeavour to help one another, to understand and to solve his adjustments problems. Carl Rogers (2001) define counselling as a therapeutic endeavour aimed at helping a client to relax his structure gain new experience and become integrated whole in the emphatic counselling environment counselling can be defined by Shertzer and Stone (2004) “as the process of helping an individual to understand himself and his world”. UNESCO (2008) says, guidance and counselling is a professional field which has a broad range of activities, programmes and services geared toward assisting individuals to understand themselves, their problems, their school environment and their world and also to develop adequate capacity for making wise choices and decisions.
According to Adenigbagbe (2010) defines guidance and counselling as a subjects that deals with developmental problems of life or phenomenon problems of human being. Guidance and counselling is the process involving a special kind of relationship between a person who asks for help with a maladative problem and a person who is trained to provide that help (which is the counsellor). Counselling can be done in two dierent ways: – Individual Counselling – Group Counselling Individual counselling is the counselling in which the counsellor who is skilled in psychological strategies assists only one at a time in resolving the clients adjustment problems. Group counselling: This is the counselling which allows the counsellor to be involved with a group of counselee at the same time. There is no distinct line of demarcation between guidance and counselling because the two term are interwoven. There is much guidance in counselling just as counselling entails guidance. In practice however, the counselling psychologist should be able to identify where guidance activities stop and where that of counselling begins.
