Globally, guidance and counselling services are essential elements in discipline and management of people in all societies. It could be difficult for any society to function well without the exercise of discipline. Guidance and counselling services as a movement started in America at the beginning of the 20th Century as a reaction to change process in an industrialized society.
Guidance and counselling are formalized actions taken by the school to make operations available to students. These services have been delimited by common agreements to provide a unique action which overlap minimally with other school functions. Guidance and counselling service are based on the fact that everybody at one time or the other need helps. So this help should be rendered unconditionally with empathic understand and free atmosphere.
Also these services promote the personal-social planning and programming for student with special skills that helps to achieve the goals needed in the school setting. Guidance and counselling services are considered to be an initiative that has the primary objective of making available information and skills to impart self-awareness and optimal use of the student’s potential for holistic growth and development.
In schools, students basically need guidance and counselling services to perform well academically and to solve their social and emotional challenges. The guidance and counselling services are initiated in schools to lead to improvements in the performances of the students, social and emotional adjustment, quality and standard of education. High school, college and university students seek guidance and counselling programs to acquire information about jobs and employment opportunities, enhancement of their growth, in leading to their development and looking for other opportunities. In order to benefit from guidance and counselling services, it is vital for the individuals to acquire a complete understanding of the knowledge and information and implement it in their lives.
Counseling services are crucial in management of discipline in schools. Implementing of counseling program in schools plays an important role in shaping students’ discipline. Schools cannot function well without the exercise of discipline. Students in schools need to be fully guided regarding discipline and attitudes that lead to success in life.
In recent years, school-based counselling has become increasingly recognized by national governments across the globe as a legitimate activity to support and enhance student’s journey through the compulsory years of education. Counselling is also being recognized by many states in the world in the role it plays in curbing students discipline in secondary schools around the world.
The objective of school counselling services were outlined which are to: provide assistance to all students in making appropriate and satisfying vocational/career, educational/academic and personal-social decisions, facilitate skills/ability that will enable students understand self, self-image, self-direction, and problem solving.
Also, to provide useful information to students so as to be aware of various available opportunities in the world of jobs, career opportunities, lifestyles that are reflected in different types of work and help students develop positive interpersonal relationship with their peers, teachers and the school environment. As well as to develop in students’ ability to remove barriers that inhibit learning, assist students to overcome educational/academic, vocational/career, emotional, social-personal related problems that impede academic excellence.
For example: behavioural addictions like stealing, truancy/absenteeism, aggressive behaviour, fear for examinations/examination phobia, academic stress, low concentration, sexual problems, lack of emotional control, insomnia, food etiquettes, academic inefficiency, obstructing social relationship among others. It also helps students to participate meaningfully in the school extra-curricular activities in preparation for social and adults‘ roles. These objectives are necessary to facilitate students‘ general wellbeing, personal fulfilment and achievement of educational goals.
Broadly, school counselling services are specifically mirrored in the three areas which are educational, vocational and psychosocial-personal counselling. These services can either be in group or individual, that is, effective counselling services that help to preserve educational values through the modification of individual students can be achieved through individual and group counselling. Individual counselling is a professional, educative and therapeutic relationship between a troubled student (client) and a counsellor to initiate positive change or otherwise adjustment in making informed decisions.
Whereas, group counselling involves professional, educative and therapeutic relationship of one or more counsellors and a group of students (clients) who are experiencing similar or almost the same problems in any or all of educational, vocational and psychosocial-personal areas. In this case, the group members can be from two to ten.
