History and Development of Guidance and Counselling

School counseling in education is very important for the learners. Counseling helps individual pupils change their attitude and behavior. Through school counseling, pupils are helped to grow by making their own decisions and learning to take responsibility for their own actions. Among the types of counseling offered in schools are educational counseling, which deals with important issues in education, personal and social counseling, which deals with emotional and behavioral difficulties. Also offered in schools is vocational counseling, which facilitates career development.

School counselors in education are involved in counseling pupils. They are involved in counseling practice, career development, and assessment of learners. School guidance and counseling help to provide a holistic approach to positive development during the time the pupils are in school.

Brief Background on Development of Guidance and Counselling

History is a continuum, and any kind of division imposed on it is more or less arbitrary. The development of Guidance and Counselling as a discipline has abundant evidence to show that it originated from America at the beginning of the 20th century because of the society’s emphasis on individual development. This can be seen from several historical events that took place in the United States. These historical events are:

1. Mental Health Movement
2. Vocational Guidance Movement
3. Standardized Testing Movement
4. Pro-counselling Legislative Acts Movement

Vocational Guidance Movement: In 1908, Frank Parsons, founded a Vocational Bureau in Boston. Parsons concern and belief was that if individuals can understand their strengths and weaknesses, such knowledge can be used to choose vocational opportunities. This pioneering effort played a great role in the evolution of modern Guidance and Counselling. The vocational guidance movement was an attempt to reduce problems of unemployment, want and poverty among underprivileged Americans. This experiments started by Parsons yielded positive results in that many youngsters benefited tremendously from the services rendered by the bureau.

Other pioneers in the advancement of counselling associated with the vocational guidance movement are Meyer Bloomfield, who succeeded Parsons as director of Boston’s Vocational Guidance Bureau, Frank P. Godwin of the Cincinnati School system, Jesse B. Davis, Eli Weaver in New York, George Merril in San Francisco and Hugo Munsterberg of Harvard University. Each of these guidance pioneers put in their best to see to the growth of the service.

For instance, in 1910, Meyer Bloomfield single handedly promoted the first National Conference on vocational guidance in the United States of America. Eli Weaver, on the other hand, promoted the Second National Conference on vocational guidance in 1912 while George Menil was the first American to practice counselling within the school system when he was a tutor in 1895 at the Californian School of Mechanical Arts, San Francisco. Hugo Munsterberg also pioneered the development of career guidance in industry with the publication of his text titled “Psychology and Industrial Efficiency”.

Origin of School Guidance and Counselling

In India, Patrica University is said to be one of the first institution to start paying attention to the problems of students. Kochhar (2009) stated that the University started providing counselling services to its students in 1745 immediately the department of psychological research services was established. After that the institution was well known for guidance and counselling in India and the United States of America. From 1950 and during 1960 guidance and counselling continued to develop in different countries in the world because it was regarded to be of help to pupils. Learners were helped to make decisions and assisted in their career path.

Worldwide it has been documented as a fact that guidance and counselling helps very to instill discipline in school pupils by addressing root causes of problems that make children indiscipline. As stated by Phiri (2006), it has been widely documented that teachers play a very significance role in guidance and counselling children in career choices. Counselling is becoming very important in the modern age and era because it is helpful to the learners worldwide. Counselling in schools worldwide directly involves pupils’ problems and how such problems can be addressed. All the teachers should get involved in the school counselling.

Globally guidance and counselling increased in schools as time went on. Gledlin (1996) reported that in 1980s, counselling and support services rose in learning institutions on supporting pupils in their stressful atmosphere in their education. All this was a result of pupils’ problems.

Valene et al. (2005) carried out a study in the United Kingdom on guidance in Scottish schools. The findings of this study showed that parents in the schools where their children learn provide guidance and counselling to the learners. The parents indicated as well that they are happy about the services provided in the schools. From this literature, it has shown that guidance and counselling services in Scottish schools were provided and parents were satisfied.

In the event that guidance and counselling is not provided to the pupils, it leads to many difficulties for the pupils during the learning process. In this literature the researcher discovered some contradictions on guidance and counselling provision to learners in schools. Dyke (2001) reported that as a result of lack of guidance and counselling services in schools pupils are not helped in terms of career interests, self awareness and character formation. This leads to pupils losing interest in the school there by becoming runaways. The findings report that in situations where pupils are not provided with guidance and counselling they lose interest in school helped the researcher to discover this negative aspect on pupils.

Some countries such as China, Finland, United States, and Botswana provide school counselling through an educational specialist. However, there are as well countries such as Japan, India, South Korea and Zambia who provide school counselling through classroom teachers. School counselling is part of the teaching load to the teachers. The teachers may be trained to help both teaching and offering counselling to the learners.

From the literature reviewed at global level, it is evident that even though guidance and counselling is provided in schools it has not been easy to provide these services because schools have few trained counsellors and lack methodology to use in the process of providing counselling and guidance to the pupils. Kamara (2001) reported that in most of the schools there are no proper mechanisms put in place to enhance effective counselling. This leads to effective counselling failing in schools; the counselling processes which are used are faulty. The overall conclusion from the literature reviewed globally indicates that guidance and counselling is provided with challenges.

Guidance and Counselling in Africa

African societies have various forms of providing counselling to the young people and children. Counselling in Africa has been there since time immemorial. Guidance and counselling in African schools draws back history from the village set up. Most people were involved in guidance and counselling in the communities they lived in. Traditional African societies had people, who were doing the counselling for example uncles, aunties, grandparents and other influential people such as chiefs and kings.

Among the common ways of offering counselling as stated by Phiri (2006) includes giving advice to young people and sharing wisdom with people who have experience in life. Guidance and counselling in African schools is provided in different ways to pupils with each African country taking its own approach. Although guidance and counselling has been part of the African society, the integration of guidance services in the education system only began in the late fifties.

African ministers of education have long been aware of the growing number of social problems affecting children. In his foreword Colin Powell the deputy director of General Education (UNESCO) stated that African Education system should play a role of promoting the growth and development of young people. In 1997, a board of governors was formed which was made up of African ministers of Education. The task of the ministers was to design a policy and establish procedures in the development of guidance and counselling programmes. As a result of all this developments, a consensus was reached that Guidance and Counselling should be an integral part of education of children and should be included in the teacher trainings.

From the time guidance and counselling was established in primary schools, teachers are trying to provide the services to the pupils. Rapid assessment conducted in Uganda by the Ministry of Education in June 2004 found that most schools were doing all they could in order to provide guidance and counselling to the learners in primary schools (Ministry of Education and Sports, 2005).

The Ministry of Education and Sports (2005) in Uganda reported that guidance and counselling was a component within their primary school curriculum meaning that every teacher trainee gets exposed to guidance and counselling skills and knowledge during his or her training. This has helped Uganda to successfully implement guidance and counselling in its schools even though there are a lot of challenges. The report further stated that schools in Uganda used different modes and approaches in delivering guidance and counselling to their pupils.

In Kenya, it is reported that guidance and counselling is provided to the learners in schools. However, Kamara (2001) revealed that in Kenya effective counselling is not provided to the learners in schools because the schools use family processes in providing guidance and counselling to the learners. The review of the literature in Kenya revealed the connections in literature done at Global level. It shows that both global and African school counsellors face challenges in providing the services to the pupils due to poor policies and poor implementation mechanisms.

In Nigeria, school counselling began in 1959 and was only found in high schools; it rarely existed in primary schools. Makude (1947) reported that school counselling has been a very big challenge for schools in Nigeria because little or no services were provided to primary schools.

In Tanzania, guidance and counselling is as well provided even though it is not on the school time table. Wikipedia encyclopaedia (2012) reports that as regards to the origin and development of guidance and counselling in Tanzanian at primary levels, there are no defined teachers to counsel pupils in schools; there is no programme or time tabled action on counselling. The counselling is left to voluntary teachers and other stakeholders interested in education.

Although literature on Africa on guidance and counselling is scanty, there is evidence that guidance and counselling is provided to the schools in most countries in Africa. In some countries such as Malawi, Zambia, Tanzania and Swaziland, guidance and counselling did not exist until the late sixties. In African countries guidance and counselling movement is relatively new in the education system. It is done on trial and error basis by many countries.

Even though guidance and counselling in some African countries have not been taken seriously, countries like Uganda have taken school guidance seriously. According to the Tutors guide in Guidance and counselling for primary teacher colleges and Edited by Wirefred George on behalf of the Ministry of Education Sports of Uganda (2005) stated, in Uganda guidance and counselling is taken very seriously such that it has been included in the school curriculum. The programme is even offered in all teacher training colleges.

Another country which has taken school guidance and counselling services and is even training teachers is Botswana. The country has compassion for the pupils who need help. Many children go to school without knowing much on what to do and how to make better decisions. Hence need for school counselling. Wilma and John (2000) reported that it is worthy to note that countries in Africa are training teachers in guidance and counselling for example in Botswana. Botswana University offers a post graduate Diploma in counselling Education. This has improved school counselling in Botswana.

The existing scholarly literature on Africa demonstrates the presence of guidance and counseling services in African schools. In Nigeria, school counseling has been instrumental in cultivating discipline among students. However, numerous challenges persist in the provision of guidance and counseling across African schools, such as a shortage of properly trained counselors and the influence of Western ideologies. Implementing effective guidance and counseling programs in Eastern and Southern African countries is hindered by the imposition of Western counseling models that do not align with the African cultural context, as well as issues of illiteracy and limited awareness.

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