Nash Guidance And Counselling Assignment.docx

In order to understand guidance and counselling, the words can be separated into two and described, guidance can be defined in so many ways for instance C.Soanes & A. Stevenson (2004) define it as advice or information aimed at resolving a problem or difficulty, from this we can see that guidance usually happens when there is a problem that needs to be sorted out, it is an act of showing the way to some people, it is directing, leading and pointing it is saying yes to someone who needs help or to someone who needs a companion on a temporal basis, according to another perspective given by gillie (2007) guidance is a general label or an umbrella term which looks at all ways in which an institution recognizes and reacts to the needs of every specified learner in an attempt to help the learner to develop to his fullest potential, in this case it could be giving directions to the learners who are confused, unloved and lonely, it can be said to be a means of pointing to some possibilities of thinking or leading a person psychologically, emotionally and even spiritually to some extents, it is part and parcel of the cancelling profession. Counselling on the other hand is giving guidance on personal, social and psychological problems, it is a subset of the general term called guidance services, it is a mutual helping relationship designed to help an individual to analyze his or herself by linking to his or her capabilities, achievements, interests and mode of adjustments to what new decision he or she has made or has to make, (Makonde, 1994). Counselling helps individual pupils or learners to change their attitude and behavior. After effective counselling, a positive change is expected from the learners or any person being counseled by a counsellor, marrying the two together gives us guidance and counselling which is the process of helping individuals to discover and develop their educational and psychological potentialities as well as those relating to their occupation or employment Encyclopedia Britannica, Inc. (1998). Therefore, after defining and describing the concept of guidance and counselling, in this essay we are going to look at the development of the concept in Zambia by using practical examples.

Guidance could be said to have started many years ago during the AIE(African indigenous education) times but it existed even before that and there are so many arguments some saying it started in Greece but however it also even existed in Zambia through so many things as it was there in ceremonies such as initiation ceremonies, Phiri (2006) states that counselling was given to young people for the purpose of giving advice to young people and sharing wisdom with people who have experience in life among which were things like marriages where ladies to be married

are being counselled on how to keep their husbands for example for any marriage to take place in Zambia there is required to be a marriage counsellor popularly know as “Alangizi” but aside from this, it also existed in many different forms and in different parts of the country and there were certain specific people offering these services for example the uncles, aunties, grandparents, the chiefs and kings and as we can see from this those in charge of this were influential and respectable people, however of late it has been institutionalized and schools have for example to a large extent taken over the function of providing this service to boy and girls.

In Zambia, guidance and counselling was institutionalized in 1967 when careers guidance was introduced and it started through the ministry of education, the ministry did this with a vision to pupils to their occupations and careers based on the capabilities of each learner and the ones to take responsibility of this project were the then called career teacher who nowadays are referred to as school counsellors or guidance teacher varying according to different schools, by this time the program was dormant as it did not have ample man power to run successfully MOE (2001). 23 years later in the 70s the program was introduced where the careers guidance unit was established and it increased in terms of its functions, the functions were many but to mention a few was to reduce dropout rates for example those pupils that dropped out due to lack of funds, death of parents as a result of failure and many other reasons, counselling pupils with social and emotional problems, these were pupils that for example had problems coming from their homes or even those in the school setup for some as a result of bullying, offering psychological help to abused pupils, an example of this are those female learners that could had been raped and needed this type of help,under the function of psychological help was also pupils with drug abuse and another function was to make the pupils sensitive about the combinations of the subjects and the choice of career and also to minimize anxiety of examinations amongst the pupils and also to counsel learners with HIV/AIDS. The need for guidance and counselling became cardinal in order to promote the well-being of the learner the purpose for these services was in order to give strength to the learner for them to be able to improve their confidence in their abilities and respect as well as admire themselves, it was also to help them realize their potential in adult lives, the main reason of counselling was to empower learners to participate to the fullest extent in the economic and social development of the nation, (Sandhu 2000).

It is important to note that even though these services have been available since 1990, their effectiveness has not been evaluated comprehensively for example drug, physical and emotional abuse, violence, peer pressure are still in existence in the country, learners have always been provided with guidance and counselling but still have indulged in riotous behavior as well as behaviors like illicit sexual behavior.

Guidance and counselling in Zambian schools is not even in the syllabus at primary level that is from grade one to seven but rather it is just treated as a cross cutting issue meaning it is treated as something that just relates to and must be considered within other categories or subjects in some instances in order to be suitably or properly addressed. Ministry of Education (2001) noted that guidance and counselling was not a subject and wasn’t even on the time table but was rather just a comprehensive program and it is because of this that teachers especially those teaching at primary schools find it challenging to provide guidance and counselling to the pupils, john (2000) states that the reason why African countries including Zambia fail to put guidance and counselling effectively is because the models of counselling being imposed are from western countries and hence are not compatible to African countries as the experiences here are might be different from there.

Mubanga (2014) says that the first workshop for careers teachers was held 5 years after guidance and counselling was first introduced by the ministry and it took place particularly in Lusaka and three and four years later after this the third and fourth were held consecutively and were also in Lusaka but the most important of all was the fourth which took place at (ZIT) Zambia Institute of Technology in 1979. The ministry of Education in 1970 told all secondary schools to nominate teachers who would later be seconded in the office of careers master for example in schools of nowadays teachers have to look for one who by his traits looks like is suitable for the office just like the way a monitor is chosen in class, they first have to be nominated and later seconded and the ones who gets the most gets into the office and this was the case in 1970.

18 years from now is when the first syllabus for school guidance and counselling was made and was followed and this was seen as a right step taken by the government because guidance and counselling supplements and facilitates works done by various teachers in different subjects. At

regional level, the need for guidance and counselling in schools has been discussed at important forums like SADC and the ministers of education meeting and in Zambia this meeting was held in 2008 in Lusaka and both these meetings were held for the purpose of strengthening the guidance and counselling programs in all SADC learning institutions, (Mubanga, 2014).

Mwaba (2011) points out that the recent studies on guidance and counselling have shown that school guidance services are offered in many High Schools in Zambia but even secondary and primary’s schools also offer for example international school of Lusaka which has both the primary school counsellor and a secondary school counsellor, in primary, the counsellor works with the staff in order to support them when he/she is needed and to address their concerns, in secondary the counsellor works with teachers, the specialist staff and the administrators in order to effectively serve the secondary community. Mwaba continues to explain that there is a marked absence of attention to problems faced by pupils, and guidance services available to pupils with visual impairments in Secondary Schools. Nonetheless, it is cardinal to point out that the importance of school guidance and counselling was repeatedly emphasized during meetings held at Mulungushi International Conference Centre in September, 2009, in Lusaka, which reviewed the school curriculum and the policy document Educating Our Future, respectively, (Mubanga, 2014). The Zambian government has also pledged to support guidance services in schools. The policy document, MESVTEE (1996) clearly states that it will strengthen its own child guidance and counselling services, which will in turn provide in-service training for teachers in how to deal with these and related problems. There are different types of guidance and counselling in Zambia for example educational guidance and counselling, this service should be provided at crisis points when learners have difficulties of subject selection, concentration in class and are performing poorly academically. In boarding high school’s guidance services have an essential role to play in ensuring that individuals' educational decisions are firmly based, and in assisting learners to develop effective self-management of their learning and career paths, (Nkhata, 2010).

There is also vocational guidance and counselling which helps learners to select suitable vocations after they have considered their strengths, limitations, preparation, educational and professional qualifications. It is meant to prepare learners for a particular career by selection of relevant courses

and programs. Through vocational guidance services therefore learners are supposed to be provided with detailed information on cut off points, subject combinations, duration of training, and the application procedures and training commencement dates for courses at institutions of higher learning, (Hamainza, 2015). On cutoff points for example the learners can be told how many points they need in order to be viable for the course of their dreams and as well there are some subjects that are needed in almost every course for example mathematics and the learners need to have all this information and they get it through this type of counselling service.

There is also avocational guidance and counselling which guides learners in the selection of hobbies, curricular games, athletics and cultural programs, apart from this there is also health guidance and counselling which aims ensuring that preventive and restorative measures such as the supervision of sanitation in the school dormitories, protection through immunization against diseases, early diagnosis and treatment of illnesses and health education through formal or informal sensitization are adhered to, (Hamainza 2015 & Nkhata, 2010). Good health is a prerequisite for the learner to participate in the curricular and co-curricular activities. This is particularly so in boarding secondary schools (Barki and Mukhopadhyay, 1986). However, Learners need guidance to appreciate and appropriate good health practices and habits.

From the discussion above, we can see that guidance and counselling is of vital importance in any learning institution in Zambia as it helps in a lot of aspects like reducing drug abuse but it only happens when properly run, we can also see that there are many types of guidance and counselling as even out of school the service is offered for example in health institutions and it is of vital importance for the teacher to have a knowledge of this concept as they will be dealing with learners that will be coming from very different places with different backgrounds and with some knowledge about this they might have some knowledge of how to handle the situation and they might also find themselves in the office one day at the school they’ll be teaching so it’s Important to have some knowledge about it, from this, we can also tell that the government needs to be made aware of the importance of guidance and counselling in schools so as for it to run smoothly such that even when investment in in is needed the government knows.

REFERENCES Barki B.G. and Mukhopadhyay B. (1986). Guidance and counselling: a manual. New Delhi 110 0200: Sterling Publishers Pvt Ltd. C.Soanes & A. Stevenson (2004) Concise English Oxford Dictionary (Eleventh Edition) Encyclopedia

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