Guidance and Counselling Services (Nigeria) PDF

**Introduction** Guidance and counseling services are an important aspect of learning in school and at home. Our society (Nigeria) is becoming increasingly Complex with technology thereby changing lifestyles at a fast pace. Teachers need to know their students and must provide mechanism of modellin...

**Introduction** Guidance and counseling services are an important aspect of learning in school and at home. Our society (Nigeria) is becoming increasingly Complex with technology thereby changing lifestyles at a fast pace. Teachers need to know their students and must provide mechanism of modelling their behaviour, provide guide in their search for future career choice and advancement. Guidance and counseling concepts will be discussed in this module. **3.1 Definition of Guidance and Counselling** **3.1.l What is Guidance?** Different scholars have defined the concept Guidance from different perspectives. Gesinde (1999) for example defined guidance as the "school activity designed to assist students to develop and to accept an integrated picture of themselves and of their roles in the world around them, to test these concepts against reality, and to convert the concepts into reality with satisfaction to themselves and benefit to society." Shetzer and Store (1976) define guidance as to directly pilot or guide. This is a layman's view of the term guidance. If used as a concept, it refers to the mental image or idea or a point of view used in order to help an individual. By this, it is viewed as a cognitive service or assistance to others based on the knowledge level of the person who is to help. Guidance can be defined as a process of development in nature, by which an individual is assisted to understand, accept and use his/her abilities, aptitudes, interest and attitudinal patterns in relation to his/her aspiration. Guidance, as an educational construct, involves experiences that assist the learner to understand and accept him/herself and live effectively in society. Guidance can also be viewed as a series of services to individuals based upon the need of each individual, an understanding of his/her immediate environment, the influence of an environmental factor on the individual and the unique features of each school. Guidance is designed to help each student adjust, set realistic goals for her/himself and improve his/her education. **3.1.2 What is Counselling?** Counselling is one of the guidance services rendered to students by a trained counselling psychologist under the auspices of a guidance programme in a school. The American Psychological Association (APA) in 1956 as reported by Uwe (2005) defined counselling as a process of helping individual towards overcoming obstacle in their personal growth, wherever these may be encountered and towards achieving optimum development of their personal resources. Kolo (1992) on the other hand reported the definition of counselling by Nelson Jones (1988) as a process whose aim is to help clients, who are mainly seen outside medical settings, to help themselves by making better choices and become better choosers. The helpers' repertoire of skills includes those of forming an understanding relationship, as well as interventions focused on helping clients change specific aspects of their feeling, thinking and acting. During the counselling process, clients' emotions and feelings are of serious concern. Counselling focuses basically on areas like nurturing and healing emotionally. It also focuses in problem management, decision making, crisis management, support and life skills training. **\ 3.1.3 Differentiate between Guidance and Counselling** From the first two sections, it is clear that guidance is a process, a series of services and an educational construct which is sometimes used interchangeably with counselling. In-fact many believe and use the acronym guidance and counselling to mean the same thing. Despite some of these commonalities of the terms, basic differences can be identified between guidance and counselling. Kolo (1997), reported the differences as recorded by Rao (1981). That 1. Counselling has a therapeutic junction i.e. it has the capacity to cure. This can happen because of the relationship that should exist between a client and counsellor in a counselling relationship which is not evident in guidance. 2. Counselling is not predominantly an information giving assistance as the case in guidance. Though information is needed in counselling, such information is a means to an end. 3. Counselling is not advice giving as always in guidance. 4. In counselling, the student is more involved while in guidance, the Guide directs. 5. Counselling can occur as an interview session or sessions leading to a service while guidance is a group of services and programme **3.1.4 Relationship between Guidance and Counselling** Setting is a service in the guidance programme. This has made near1y all writers to define guidance as the assistance given to individuals to help them understand themselves, their world and to make intelligent adjustment and choices (Alao, 1981; Rao, 1981 and Sheizer & Stone, i76). These writers have been reported by Kolo (1997). Also, the fundamental role of counselling service in the guidance programme has caused the term to he used conjointly and synonymously. Being used collectively that means that guidance and counselling is a process of assisting individuals to cope with problems. It is therefore important to note the following: 1. Guidance and counselling are all professional helping relationships which are concerned with the individual as a human being who is unique. 2. The concern for individual in guidance and counselling is how to help such individual grow and develop in such a way that he or she is useful to himself or herself. 3. Guidance and counselling are on-going processes and not events which happen once and for all. 4. Guidance and counselling are concerned with the total person and not an aspect of the individual. **3.1.5 The School Guidance and Counselling Service** School guidance and counselling service can be generally defined as a formal and systematic process of organized services offered in the school system to help an individual develop his potentialities to the fullest. From such services, the individual acquires accurate (or semi--- accurate) knowledge and appropriate skills for accurate appraisal of self, maximizing all his capabilities for appropriate decision and action in order to obtain the best in self-realization at any given time. Guidance and Counselling service therefore involves a conscious concern for the past, present and the future life of the student. The purpose of school guidance and counselling primarily revolves around two main foci: 1. Meeting the individual learner at the point of his needs and problems by improving his capability to respond appropriately to himself, others and environment in a given circumstance in order to achieve optimum self-realization, personal satisfaction and social usefulness. 2. Equipping the individual, on a life-span continuous basis, of his preparedness to respond to any future situational demands and challenges with great appropriateness. The scope of school guidance and counselling spans from primary school to tertiary education along the lines enunciated by the Counselling Association of Nigeria (CASSON) and reported by Nwachukwu (2000) as; 1. Educational services 2. Vocational services 3. Personal-social services Different authors and professional practitioners have tried to subdivide these three broad categories into varying sub-units of services. The commonest units found in literature which seems to have received consensus nationally and internationally are listed below: 1. Educational service 2. Vocational service 3. Orientation service 4. Information service 5. Appraisal service 6. Counselling service 7. Placement service 8. Referral service 9. Follow-up service 10. Consultancy service 11. Research and innovation service 12. Community counselling service 13. Family counselling service