INFLUENCE OF GUIDANCE PROGRAMME ON ACADEMIC ACHIEVEMENT OF SS 2 STUDENTS IN TOTO LOCAL GOVERNMENT AREA OF NASARAWA
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY
Guidance and counseling as a discipline in education concerns itself with assisting students world-wide to function effectively by enabling them get over the difficulties which might prevent them achieve self-actualization in their academic pursuit. This stresses the fact that modern African children and youths need guidance and counseling. But to be effective, guidance practices must be based on philosophies that reflect African thinking (Esen, 1977). The National Policy on Education (NPE). In this document the need for the integration of the individual into a sound and effective citizens, and provision of equal educational opportunities for all citizens’ of the nation at primary, secondary and tertiary levels of education, both inside, and outside the formal
school system, are clearly stated Contained also in The National Policy on education is the change from 6-5-2-3 system of education to the new 6-3-3-4 system of education. This change was the after math of the Curriculum Conference of 1969. Based on the philosophical assumption that although intellectual cultivation is a primary function of education, educational objectives cannot be conceived of in solely intellectual terms, but must rather be conceived in terms of a far broader realization of the many facets of human personality. This is because it is the function of the school to develop in each individual the habits and powers whereby he will find his place and use that place to positively shape both himself and society. Educational goals should transcend the narrowly circumscribed limits of intellectual cultivation. It must include the training of the individual in the optimum use of the head, the heart, and hand. (Okafor, 2004). It was at this backdrop that the national policy on education was re-designed/harmonized be geared towards self-realization, better human relationship, individual and national efficiency, effective citizenship national consciousness, national unity, as well as towards social, cultural, economic, political, scientific and technology progress (NPE, 1981; Okafor 1988). In addition to the change in the school system the nation has witnessed a number of economical, technological, political and social changes in recent times, which tend to rock all spheres. The result is that the machine invented today becomes obsolete tomorrow. The solutions adopted today become out-dated tomorrow. The courses popular today become replaced with new ones tomorrow. In situation such as this effective guidance services become an indispensable factor of an equation which will result in making students acquire better knowledge of themselves and their environment. The understanding of self and environment can facilitate technological progress.
