Influence of students attitudes towards the success of guidance and counseling programmes in public secondary schools in Mombasa island, Kenya.

Abstract

This study aimed at investigating the influence of student’s attitudes towards the success of Guidance and Counseling programmes in public secondary schools in Mombasa Island. Despite the establishment of Guidance and Counseling departments in schools, there are high rates of truancy and disruptive behaviour among students, inappropriate language in the co-curricular meetings and poor performance in National examinations. The specific objectives were to find out whether student’s attitudes contribute to the failure of the Guidance and Counseling programmes and whether the attitudes were influenced by age, religion and gender of the teacher counselor. The research design was a descriptive survey. The target population was the 13 public secondary schools in Mombasa Island. Purposive sampling technique was used to choose three boys and three girls schools to constitute the study sample. Stratified sampling technique was used to select respondents in form 1-4 in each school. The respondents were required to answer a structured questionnaire, while an interview schedule was administered to the heads of the institutions. Data obtained was analyzed using descriptive statistics. Frequency tables, percentages and bar graphs were used to present the data. The study revealed that students prefer youthful teacher counselors. Fear of the student’s issues being known by parents and peers made them not to seek guidance. Boys were less likely to seek help for fear of being seen weak by peers. Gender and religious background of the teacher counselor does not hider students from seeking help. It is hoped that the findings will be used by schools to improve Guidance and Counseling departments. Policy makers may find the findings useful in formulating policies such as training and capacity building for teacher counselors. The findings will also be beneficial to other researchers. From the findings it was recommended that youthful teacher- counselors be trained and recruited into the Guidance and Counseling departments in schools. Peer counseling should be encouraged to cater for the students who don’t have confidence to face teacher- counselors. Induction and orientation programmes should be held for form ones to introduce them to the usefulness of the Guidance and Counseling.