AKENTEN APPIAH –MENKA UNIVERSITY OF SKILLS TRAINING

ENTREPRENUERIAL DEVELOPMENT

FACULTY OF APPLIED SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS EDUCATION

DEPARTMENT OF INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION

COURSE CODE:

COURSE TITLE: GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING IN TEACHER EDUCATION

INSTRUCTIONS

1. With practical examples, explain the concept Guidance.

2i. State any five (5) guidance functionaries you know.
2 ii. Discuss the roles of each of the guidance functionaries in the provision of all the guidance
services in
Ghanaian pre- tertiary schools.

1. The concept guidance is the process of assisting the individual to choose, to prepare, to
enter upon and progress in course of action pertaining to the educational, vocational,
recreational and community services.
It is the process of helping the individual through their own efforts to discover and
develop their own potentialities both for personal happiness and social usefulness.
Guidance is a process because the phenomenon involves series of actions which are
planned or structured, carry out in order to achieve a particular goal.

Guidance can also be defined as a kind of help or advice given to an individual especially
students on matter of choosing a course of study or career, work or preparing for
vocation, from a person who is superior in the respective field or an expert. It is the
process of guiding, supervising or directing a person for a particular course of action.
The process aims at making the students or individuals aware of the rightness or
wrongness of their choices and importance of their decisions, on which their future
depends. It is a service that assist students in selecting the most appropriate course for
them to discover and develop t heir psychological and educational abilities and
ambitions. Guidance results in self –development and helps a person to plan his present
and future wisely.

Peku (1991) explained guidance as the systematic professional process of helping the
individual through educative and interpretive procedure to gain a better understanding
 of his or her own characteristics and potentialities and to relate himself or herself more
satisfactorily to social requirements and opportunities.

Biswalo (1996) defined guidance as the process of helping the individual to gain self-
understanding, self-direction and to adjust maximally to the environment.

This helps is designed to assist people in deciding where they want to go, what they
want to do , how to get to their destination , and how to solve problems arising in their
life.

Kankam and Onivehu (2000) also believed that guidance is an incremental process of
education that is particularly concerned with educational, vocational, and social
development not generally or specifically planned for primarily concerned with assisting
in day- to –day decision making.

2 (i) The school Guidance functionaries includes:

1. Guidance and Counselling Coordinator /school Counsellor

2. The Headmaster /Headmistress /Principal

3. The teacher

4. The parents or Guardians

5. The pupils

6. The Community

7. The school Nurse

2 (ii) functions of the school Guidance and Counselling Coordinator /School Counsellor:
A. Appraisal service: This could also be termed as individual analysis. Through this function,
the guidance counselling coordinator or school counsellor makes student to become
aware of his characteristics ,strengths and weaknesses and further develop rational
decisions- making capabilities. This service enable the counsellor to provide relevant data
that will help parents, teachers and administrators understand students.
B. Counselling service: this function enable the counsellor who is trained to give assistance to
and to have an interactive relationship with the counselee who needs assistance. Through
this service, counselees are helped to deal effectively with self and the reality of his or her
environment. The service regarded as the nucleus of guidance service helps facilitate self-
understanding and self-development which afford individuals or group of people a better
understanding of themselves in terms of their confused ideas , hopes, fears , feelings and
aspirations .

C. Informative service: through this service, the guidance counsellor is always able to
provide the school and the students with better knowledge of educational, vocational, and
social –opportunities in order to have the benefits of informed decisions and choices. This
function involves collecting of data in diverse areas of education, career and social life for
presentation to students in order to be informed so that they can make decisions with ease
in increasing complex society.

D. Planning service: planning is to decide ahead of time what an individual wants to do, and
the way he should do it. The guidance counsellor helps students plan their educational
vocational, and personal social activities realistically in order to assist them in achieving
their goals.

E. Placement service: the guidance counsellor carries out placement service functions in and
outside the school setting. In the school setting, placement can be carried out by placing
students in appropriate classes and or school, courses, training or vocation. He or she can
also do placement for students who are to go for attachment, practical or industrial
training outside the school setting.
F. Follow –up service: this service helps the guidance counsellor to go through the services
he or she must have offered to the counselee. It is an avenue through which the counsellor
determines the effectiveness of planning and placement activities. This service allow the
counsellor to see and verify whether the guided or counselled individual or group is coping
after guidance or counselling.
G. Orientation service: This function serves the purpose of acquainting new students in an
academic environment with the facilities, challenges and problems and prospect in their
new school. It is a guidance service that allows the guidance counsellor to make the new
students psychologically stable in the new environment because they will be meeting with
new set of people, administration, rules and regulations and environment which my
require adjustment for them to be to perfectly .
H. Evaluation service: This enables the guidance counsellor to assess the effectiveness of his
stewardship in the school system. The evaluation can be carried out through the use of
interview, observation or questionnaire. Measurement instruments are to gather data
 which will reveal whether or not the services provided are adequate in the school. The
gathered information will help the counsellor to improve upon the services he or she is
providing or modify or suspend anyone that is not achieving the desired results.
I. Consultation service: consultation here refers to the interaction between the guidance
counsellor and other professionals in the school setting. It is an avenue through which
technical assistance are offered to other professionals in the school in order to become
more effective in the services they offer to the students and staff.
J. Referral service: this is the act of transferring a client or counselee to another professional
or agency where his or her problem can be appropriately handled .The professional or
agency may be within or outside the school setting. Shertzer and Stone (1976) remarked
that personnel or agency outside the school setting are used because they provide
specialized services that the guidance counsellor cannot claim to have expertise in all
sphere of endeavor, he makes referral with the consent of the client on matters outside his
or competence .

Functions of the Headmaster/Headmistress /Principal.

The school-Principal is the Chief Executive within the secondary school- system. He is by this
virtue of this position expected to provide leadership for all school-based programme, including
school guidance. The following are some specific functions of the principal in school-guidance
practice.
A. The principal should recognize and appreciate the need for and the importance of a
comprehensive school guidance programme for all pupils.
B. The principal should make provision in terms of budgetary allocations and physical plant
planning for effective delivery of school- guidance services.
C. The principal should provide the needed facilities, equipments, suppliers and clerical
and administrative support systems for effective school guidance.
D. The principal direct and coordinate school guidance programme cooperatively with
other members of staff within the school.
E. The principal takes the responsibility for setting –up the school guidance committee
after a consultation with the counsellor and other staff in the school.
F. The principal takes the responsibility for consulting with members of staff to arrive at
unanimous decisions on such matters pertaining to organizational structure, individuals’
roles and functions of all personnel involved in school- guidance programme.
G. The principal plan, initiate and develop a tradition of in-service training for school
counselors. He plan, coordinate and mobilize community based – resources to enhance
school guidance programme.
 H. The most important role play by the school principal is to ensure that the whole school
climate becomes a growth- promoting environment where pupils and teachers are free
to be themselves even when still in teaching –learning contexts.

Roles of the school teachers in Guidance and Counselling Service:

A. Career educator
The success of the career guidance program is tied to the success of the career
education program, a success that rests largely with the classroom teacher. The career
education responsibilities of the teacher include developing positive attitude and
respect for all honest work, a challenging responsibility in view of many adult-imposed
biases with which the student is constantly confronted. The teacher must also promote
the parallel development of positive student attitudes towards education and its
relationship to career preparation and decision making. Students must also have the
opportunity to examine and test concepts, skills, and roles and develop values
appropriate to their future career planning.
B. Human Relation Facilitator
The potential for success of any school counselling program depends to a considerable
degree upon the climate of the school, an environment that should be conducive to the
development and practice of positive human relations. The influence of the classroom teacher
is dominant. Among the research emphasizing the importance of a favourable classroom and
school environment is that reported in Benjamin Bloom’s book “Human Characteristics all that
a School has to Teach at or Near the same Achievement Level”. His research indicates that most
students will vary in both learning and their motivation to learn when they are provided the
favourable environment or conditions for learning. His research also demonstrate that when
the climate in the classroom is unfavourable, differences occur that widen the gap between
high and low achievers. In this role as a human relations facilitator, the classroom teacher has
the opportunity to be a role model to demonstrate positive human relations.
c. Discover of Human Potential
Each year teachers are witnesses to talents parading through their respective classes. Most
teachers have the expertise to identify those who have some special talents for their own
particular career specialty .that expertise, multiplied across the many career specialties,
represents a near army of talent scouts that should ensure that each student will have his or
her talent s and potentials identified and his or her development encouraged and assisted. This
teacher role as a discoverer of human potential is significant fulfilling in the mission of the
school counselling program.
D .Referral and Receiving Agent
 The classroom teacher is the major source of student referral to the school counsellor. Because
counsellor’s daily personal contact with student are necessarily limited, the counsellor’s
personal awareness of student needing counselling limited. The counselling program must,
therefore, depend on an alert faculty to ensure that student with counselling need will not go
unnoticed and uncounseled .School counsellor need to encourage their teacher colleagues to
activity search for these students, because much evidence exists to suggest that only the tip of
the preverbal iceberg has been touched in effort to identify all students with serious
counselling needs. Of course, simply identifying these student to a counsellor may not be
enough. In many instances, the teacher must orient and encourage the student to seek
counsellor’s assistance. Not only does the teacher’s responsibility necessarily end when the
student has entered a counselling relationship. The teacher may still be involved, if only in the
role supporting the student’s continuation with the counselling process. Teachers may also
anticipate a role as receiving agent, not only for those students they have refereed but also for
other in their classes. In such situation, the teacher in a sense receives the counselled student
back into the classroom environment and, it is hoped, supports and reinforces the outcome of
the counselling.
E. Listener –Advisor
Most classroom teachers see their pupils every day, 5 days a week, for at least 45 minutes per
day on the average of 180 school days per year, often for several years, all of which
representing a staggering amount of contact time exceeded by no other adults except parents,
and that . Inevitably , the teacher more than any other professional in the school settings is in
the position to know the students best, to communicate with them on an almost daily basis,
and to establish relationships based on mutual trust and respect . The teacher thus becomes
the first line of contact between the students and the school counselling program, a contact in
in which the teacher will frequently be called onto serve in a listening /advising capacity.
F. Guidance Service Program Supporter
Someone once said”counsellors are the most human of all humans. “Be that as it may
counsellors, like all humans, need and respond to the encouragement and support to their
fellow beings. Therefore, a significant contribution that the classroom teacher can make to the
school counselling program is one of counsellor’s encouragement and support and the creation
of a motivating environment. Support can be especially influential in determine how pupils
view and use the service of the schools’ counselling program. Of course, evidence of teachers
support for counselling support ideally should extend to parents and others in the community.
According to Zeran and Riccion (1962), the following are the guidance functions of school
teachers:
1. They cooperate with the principal in the evaluation of existing guidance services and in
the inventory to staff competencies useful in the guidance service.
2. They know and use the basic principles of human behavior.
3. The teacher develop skills in observing and analyzing student behavior in order to
ascertain when an incident is significant, and also to be sure that it will not be reported
out of context.
4. Teachers accept the responsibility in the planning and development stages of the
program.
5. They recognized the need for specialized guidance personnel and understand the
relationship so necessary between the guidance personnel and the classroom teacher.
6. They integrate occupational, educational and personal –social information into the
respective subjects.
7. They assist in providing data for the students’ cumulative record folder and utilize these
data in a professional manner.
8. They also develop home and classroom materials.
9. They provide the students with facts about himself and his environment as a framework
for thinking logically to his goals and relate them to his abilities.
10. They place emphasis on self –understanding, self-direction, utilization of potentials, and
acceptance of responsibilities for actions by the students.
11. They express to the principal the need for an organized program for guidance services.

The roles of Parents or Guardians

Parents and guardians are expected to cooperate with the school in the education and
guidance of their children. Cooperation is the best word that summarizes the functions
of parents and guardians (Zeran and Riccion, 1962).
The following are some the specific cooperative functions of parents in the school
guidance programme.

1. Parents should provide information which would be useful in providing proper

guidance for their children.
2. Parents should encourage their children to make use of guidance services.
3. Parents should utilize guidance services in the school to learn more about their
children.
4. Parents should also examine their own home lives to determine if their children are
operating from a home environment that is conducive to learning.
5. Parents should ensure that they help the school by teaching their children proper
attitudes such as those of self-discipline, self-improvement, dignity of labour,
acceptance of responsibility, and honesty.

Roles of the students /pupils

1. The pupils or students must cooperate with school teachers administration when
they are sent to the counsellor for guidance.
2. Students must recognize and accept the counsellor as a professional.
3. The students should go for counselling as the need arises for them.
4. Students should make use of educational and occupational materials provided
for them by the school guidance services.
5. The students or pupils are to assist the guidance programme by informing their
parents of the material, and other needs of the school guidance programme so
that they can provide them.
6. The students are to open up and be ready to give the counsellor the any
information needed to help them in the counselling processes. The students or
clients are also to help create awareness for others of the importance of
guidance and counselling in the school.

The role of the community

The community is where the school is located. It has the right to expect the best
from members of the school system. The community also have the
responsibilities of providing the community with facilities and services that will
allow the school to produce the best from the students and other members of
the community. The community must relate closely with the school. The school
guidance counsellor should tap from the pool of resources in the community in
providing effective guidance services to students. The following are some of the
areas of which the community could be useful for the school guidance.

1. The community provides avenues or opportunities for work- study

programme for the students.
2. The community comprises a referral resources for the school guidance
programme.
3. The community should show interest in the school guidance activities
organized for them and their children.
4. Placement services must be based on the good understanding of the
occupational and educational opportunities in the community.
5. The community can also provide resource persons for career talks and
information needed for counslling.
6. Organization of field trips to places of occupational interest must involve
community participation.

The Role of the School Nurse

Physical illness can result in emotional disturbances and stress. Emotional and
mental stress can be very deliberating and school clinics exist to enable students
receives prompt medical attention when they become physically ill. The school
clinics acts as physical first aiders especially if the case is serious before the pupil
is taken to the hospital to see the medical doctor. The following are some of the
roles played by the school nurse.

1. The school nurse works closely with the school counsellor in order to provide
emotional health care where there is needed; for example, in the area of fear
and anxiety of failing examination due to illness.
2. The school counsellor needs an –up to -date health record on pupil. The
school nurse explains to the counsellor implications complicated medical
reports from the doctor on the child. This helps the school counsellor to
confidentially take up whatever issue it is with the school authorities and
parents on behalf of the child.
3. The school nurse provides medical and health services by determining what
disease or disability the child is suffering from, how it came about, how to
cure the child and how to prevent the disease.
4. The school nurse gives health education to the general community. This may
include preventive health, reproductive health, sex problems, nutrition, and
dangers of self-medication, drug abuse and basics of first aid.
5. In consultation with school counsellor and parents in respect of the pupil’s
health needs, the school nurse may study the home and family problems and
other ailments and offer professional guidance.