Status And Challenges Of Guidance And Counselling Programme In Discipline Management In Public Secondary Schools In Kiambu County, Kenya

ABSTRACT

Guidance and counselling programmes were introduced in Kenya secondary schools so as to enhance personal, social and academic development of students. The success of these programmes has however remained in doubt with scanty studies done in trying to explain this concept, a matter that this study addressed. The purpose of this study was to examine the status and challenges of the guidance and counselling programme in public secondary schools in Kiambu County. The objectives of the study were to: establish the types of resources available for implementation of guidance and counselling programmes; determine the prevalent indiscipline cases among secondary school students; determine the major causes of indiscipline among secondary school students; determine the challenges teacher counsellors face in executing their duties and to establish measures that can be undertaken to improve guidance and counselling in public secondary schools. The study’s theoretical framework was based on social exchange theory. A descriptive research design was adopted for the study that targeted a population of 15 principals, 15 deputy principals, 15 HoDs guidance and counselling and 2,347 students from the 15 public secondary schools in Ndeiya Divison, Kiambu County. Proportionate sampling was used to select 8 out of 15 schools. Purposive sampling was used to select 8 principals, 8 deputy principals and 8 HoD guidance and counselling of each of the schools that were included in the sample while simple random sampling was employed to select 240 students. Data were collected using four sets of questionnaires that were designed for the school principals, deputy principals, teacher counsellors and students. Quantitative data were analyzed using descriptive statistics with the aid of SPSS and the findings presented using tables, pie charts and bar graphs. Qualitative data was arranged thematically in line with research objectives and reported in a narrative form. The study established that the prevalent cases of indiscipline in schools were noise making, stealing, destruction of property and truancy. The major causes of indiscipline cases in the schools were negative peer influence, lack of proper guidance and negative social media influence. Despite resources such as seminars, reading materials, motivational speakers, family meetings and motivation of counsellors being available, they were inadequate. Various challenges to implementation of guidance and counselling programme included lack of specific time allocation, inadequate facilities, lack of cooperation from students and lack of cooperation from parents. The study concludes that the schools under the study have a long way to go in ensuring discipline management through guidance and counselling. The study recommends that first the schools should invite the parents, churches, other sponsors, and the surrounding community to give support to guidance and counselling programme on social adjustment of students. Secondly, the Ministry of Education should strengthen the guidance and counselling units in the implementation of the programme in schools by introducing mandatory in-service training in guidance and counselling for all teacher counsellors who do not have basic training in guidance and counselling. Thirdly, the Ministry of Education should facilitate peer counselling training to enable guidance and counselling departments to use peer counsellors to reach out to their peer students effectively in schools.