ABSTRACT

Guidance and counselling in schools aims at helping learners to modify their behaviour maladjustments in life. It helps them achieve their educational goals as well as grow into responsible adults. The overall goal of this study was to establish the teacher-factors affecting guidance and counselling in lower primary schools in uniformed-forces based schools in Nakuru County. The study focused on the specific objectives including; establishing the counselling competencies of teacher counsellors in offering guidance and counselling; establishing the counselling strategies used by teacher counsellors when counselling pupils; find out the role played by head teachers in supporting guidance and counselling; establishing the contributions of lower primary class teachers towards guidance and counselling of lower primary school pupils in uniformed-forces based schools. The study was guided by the client-centered theory that was developed by Carl Rogers in the early 1960s. The research adopted a descriptive survey to establish the teacher-factors affecting guidance and counselling in lower primary schools in uniformed-forces based schools in Nakuru County. The study was carried out in uniformed-forces based schools in Gilgil and Bahati sub- counties of Nakuru County. The study sample included all the five (5) head teachers of the study schools, five (5) teacher counsellors and (30) lower primary school class teachers of the study schools. Data was collected through an interview with teacher counsellors and three questionnaires for all the respondents. The qualitative data was obtained from the open-ended questionnaires and the interview while quantitative data was derived from the closed-ended questionnaires. The results were presented using descriptive statistics such as frequency distributions, percentages and tabulations while qualitative data was presented using texts and verbatims. The results of the study indicated that some of the main competencies applied by most teacher counsellors include: use of appropriate language; creating relationships; and being warm towards pupils. The quality of the provision of school guidance and counselling services in Kenyan lower primary schools is negatively affected by the lack of competencies such as; self-motivation, self-awareness lack of understanding of individual and professional values and attitudes. There is need for training of teacher counsellors in guidance and counselling, planning needs assessment and evaluation to improve services delivery. It was also found that lack of appropriate strategies for counselling of lower primary school pupils; the heavy workload and other non- guidance and counselling duties such as subject teaching and training of pupils in co-curricular activities hinder provision of guidance and counselling service in lower primary schools. Adequacy of time allocation for guidance and counselling programme in lower primary schools is not fully catered for. The study recommended that schools should use play activities such as sand play in guiding and counselling the lower primary school pupils; resources need to be availed to enhance provision of the guidance and counselling services to pupils effectively; teacher counsellors should be exposed to frequent training to acquire new and varied competencies and strategies for counselling lower primary school pupils, head teachers and class teachers should fully be supportive to counselling in the uniformed –forces based schools.