Student Support: Guidance and

Counseling
Unit Three
 Learning Objectives:
• After you have completed this unit, you should be able:
• to define the terms guidance, and counseling
• to identify the aims and objectives of guidance and counseling in schools
• to identify the needs for guidance and counseling
• to identify the characteristics of effective guidance and counselors.
• to demonstrate knowledge of the importance of guidance and counseling to teachers and students
• to critically analyze the concepts, scope, and theories that govern the process of guidance and
counseling
• to use the principles and functions of guidance and counseling to ensure a safe learning
environment in school
• to identify and apply different tools of data collection in different situations
• select and apply appropriate counseling techniques to solve students’ problems
• to coordinate and communicate with various stakeholders in the process of guidance and
counseling.
 Concept of Guidance and Counseling
• what is guidance and counseling?
• have been loosely or interchangeably used
• are two sides of the same coin.
• Guidance includes counseling as one of its services.
• The goal in both cases is to give an opportunity for an
individual to see a variety of available options and
thereafter, assist the person in making a wise choice.
 Definitions:
• Guidance is a broad term that is applied to a school’s
program of activities and services that are aimed at
assisting students to make and carry out adequate
plans and to achieve satisfactory adjustment in life.
• an individual is assisted to understand, accept and
utilize his/her abilities, aptitudes and interests and
attitudinal patterns in relation to his/her aspirations.
• to help each person adjust to his/her environment,
develop the ability to set realistic goals for him/herself,
and improve his/her total educational program
 Common types of guidance
• Educational Guidance: the provision of assistance to
pupils in their choices in and adjustment to the
schools’ curriculum and school life in general.
• Vocational Guidance: is a process of helping
individuals to choose an occupation, prepare for, enter
into and progress in it.
• Personal and Social Guidance: is the process of helping
an individual on how to behave with consideration to
other people.
 Counseling
• is usually viewed as one part of guidance services.
• Defined differently, based on orientations
• Counseling is a professional helping relationship b/n client and
counselor
• Counseling is a process in which the helper expresses care and
concern towards the person with a problem to facilitate that
person’s personal growth and positive change through self-
understanding.
• Counseling focuses upon helping the individual to cope with
development tasks such as self-definition, independence, and the
like.
 Difference b/n G & C
GUIDANCE COUNSELLING
Broader and comprehensive In-depth and narrow

More external An internal analysis

Targets intellectual attitudes Works more with emotional attitudes

It is both generalized and specialized service Specialized service

Counselling is a reactive service. It

is a proactive service or preventive service
assumes that the problems already exist.

Can be done in public or confidential settings Done in confidential settings

It is a continuous Process (a life-long

 Similarities b/n GUIDANCE and
COUNSELLING
• Both are helping services
• Both aim at solving problems in life
• Both are principled activities
• Both aims to promote the personal/social, educational,
and career development of all students .
• Both are integral components of education system.
 Levels of Guidance and Counseling in
schools
Individual guidance and counseling: Group Guidance:
• Individual guidance and counseling • Group guidance encompasses
is tailored to an individual.
• It is advice, strategy or planning to assist its members to have
designed for a singular person or experiences desirable or even
thing and their unique situation. necessary for making
• Can be any advice, usually
professional advice, given to a appropriate decisions in the
person based on their unique prevailing contexts.
circumstances.
• - e.g. career counseling, financial • sharing a common problem,
planning, medical or psychological • Common goals
advice
 Organization of Group Guidance
Activities:
1. Need Assessment
2. Determining size of the group and time, venue
for group activities:
3. Selection of members and role specifications:
4. Orientation of Members:
5. Monitoring of activities and evaluation of
outcomes:
 Techniques of Group Guidance:
• Group Discussion
• Problem solving:
• Role play:
• case study
• sociometric technique
 Advantages and Limitations of Group
guidance:
• Advantages of Group Guidance:
• Inspires learning and understanding
• Saves time and effort:
• Improvement of student’s attitude and behavior : Development of
wholesome and helpful awareness of unrecognized needs and
problems of student/s
• Limitations of Group Guidance:
• students may feel hesitant to come out with their personal
problems in the group.
• Time constraint with a rigid type of administration
– Lack of cooperation
• Teacher may feel this as an additional burden
 Information gathering in G-C
• you need to develop or adapt instruments for
data gathering in G-C
• Group and Individual Interview
• Group and Individual Observations
• Anecdotal Record: This is record of snapshots
of significant events in the life of the learner
.Collecting information from clients
• How do you do this?
• Interview
– Client
– Significant others
• Observation
• Psychological tests
• Student’s health
• Physical status
• School academic record/Document analysis
• Home and other social background
• Classmates
• Unit leaders
• teachers
 Steps of counseling
How to begin counseling? How to end counseling?
 Records to be kept by the
Teacher/Counselor
• Records of Achievement
– School progress of each student, need for remedial measures
• Personality Information Records
– concern for others -- antisocial
– Responsibility
– Emotional stability , aggression tendencies
• Health Records
– Medical statements about student’s ears, eyes, teeth, posture,
nervous symptoms, or speech defects should also be included.
• Family Records
– Assessing home conditions to spot out student’s difficulties
 The Trend of the Development of School
Counseling in an International Context
• Based on a review of [the three articles on]
school counseling, 3 observations made:
• (a) from non-professionals to professionals;
• (b) from position to program; and
• (c) from a remedial orientation to a preventive
and developmental orientation.
 From Non-professionals to
Professionals
• striving for the establishment of formal positions
of professionally trained school counseling and
guidance personnel for years (e.g. In Japan and
South Korea)
• school counseling work is carried out by trained,
qualified professionals well-informed of the
counseling practice and ethics in the United
States.
 from position to program
• Gysbers (2008) posited that to make school
guidance work effective, emphasis should be
placed on the implementation of school
guidance as a program on the whole rather
than the sheer establishment of the school
counselor position.
from a remedial orientation to a preventive
and developmental orientation.
• school counseling and guidance work seems to be moving
from a remedial orientation to one that emphasizes more
on the strengths of students in both Japan and South
Korea.
• different strength-based counseling models have appeared.
As Seligman (1998) stated, “Treatment is not just fixing
what is broken, it is nurturing what is best within ourselves”
• Rogers paid attention to human strengths rather than
pathologies, to human assets rather than liabilities, to
human potential rather than limitations (see Lopez et al.,
2006).
 Ethics in counseling
• Ethics is a way of thinking about becoming the
best practitioner possible.
– Ethics is more than a list of things to avoid fear …
• Ethical principles are vital to a healthy counseling
relationship
– … counsellors are required:
– to act in the best interest of their client,
– promoting client goals,
– protecting client rights,
– maximising good and minimizing harm.
 Services offered by guidance and
•
counseling program
The Services offered by guidance and counseling program are (Yusuf O., 1998):
• Help students improve their learning skills such as note taking preparation, preparation
for tests and examinations, use of library and study habits.
• Organizing regular orientation programs for the school community to develop their
knowledge on the concept of guidance and counseling and the role of teachers in
the program.
• Organize clubs to help students develop a sense of responsibility and develop
hobbies.
• Assist students to plan their own individual programs and related to different
goals and careers.
• Help students to understand and appreciate the rules and regulations of the school by
providing the necessary information.
• Provide information on higher learning, what they offer, their requirements, and entrance
qualifications, social environment and prospects for personal development.
 … Services
• Assist students to make educational and vocational choices with respect
to their ability and interest, by providing the necessary information.
• Plan and conduct research designed to improve the total teaching process.
• Establish horizontal relationship with other organisations e.g. the Red
Cross Association and Family Guidance Association.
• Participate in different committees such as curriculum, examination, anti-
AIDS committee.
• Collect information from subject teachers, homeroom teachers, unit
leaders, records, parents, etc.
• Prepare papers on different topics and provide information to students to
help them develop self-understanding.
• Work with university professors and professionals to enhance skills of
counselors.
• Engage in administrative activities.
 Counseling services in high schools
• It is important to know the behavioral characteristics, psychodynamics of youth and
the young.
• Ethiopia is the country of the young.
• High school years coincide with the teenage period and/or the period of youth.
• Teenage period is the time when teenagers are the most receptive and sensitive to
all types of changes and modernization.
• According to Yusuf, the following are some of the problems faced by students.
– frustration, inferiority or superiority complex, anxiety and tension,
– future career problem, delinquency, rape, unwanted pregnancy and abortion.
• Unique problems to girls are: illegal abortion, unwanted pregnancy, tardiness,
absenteeism, withdrawal, dropout, hetrosexual problems, disagreement with
parents, inferiority complex and underachievement.
• Thus, students need professional help in order to cope with the problems and
become productive (Yusuf O., 1998).
Teachers’ role in guidance-counseling
The classroom teacher would be a very helpful resource person as a
counselor or as generalists in the participation of counseling services:
 The teacher is always near to the students.
 He/ she is the first to identify the problems of his/her students.
 He or she is often the source of referrals. He/she can contribute to the
financial relief of the school.

Thus, teachers can act as counselor and the teacher as counselor serves
pupils’ needs by:
1. Assisting pupils to understand themselves and their social and
psychological world’
2. Helping pupils develop their aptitudes, abilities, interests and
opportunities for self-fulfillment.
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