A Study of Teachers' and Students' Perception on Areas of Priority in Guidance and Counselling in Rural Secondary Schools of Mbeere Didtrict-Kenya

Abstract

Students in rural secondary schools need counseling that meets their needs to enable them cope with personal problems caused by rapid changes in society. The students come from diverse family backgrounds and have various needs as they are in adolescent stage. Areas of pnority in counseling need to be considered when establishing guidance and counseling programs in secondary schools. The objective of this study was to determine the students’ and the teachers’ perception on the areas of priority that students need to be counseled on in relationship to students’ class level, gender and school type. lt utilized an ex post facto design. The target population included all the secondary school students and teachers in the counseling committees in public secondary schools in Mbeere District. A random sample of 213 students and 39 teacher-counselors was used from 14 secondary schools. Two questionnaires, one for the students and one for the teacher-counselors, were used to collect the data. The data was then processed and analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics with the assistance of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS). The study showed that the perception of the teachers and the students on areas of priority that students need counseling on differ significantly on relationships with opposite sex, drug abuse and alcoholism, premarital sex, biological development stages, spiritual guidance, career and vocational choice, time management, managing academic stress and economic problems. The research recommended various aspects of guidance and counseling to be emphasized on in secondary schools depending on the students’ class levels, school type and gender.