Effect of Guidance and Counselling Teachers’ Professional Qualifications on Implementation of Guidance and Counselling Services in Baringo Central Sub-County, Kenya

Abstract

Guidance and counselling is an important part of the school curriculum. This is because of the pressing need of personal, social, educational leisure and work aspects of the students. However, this important service is not sufficiently handled in most schools. In light of this fact, this paper examines the influence of the guidance and counselling teachers’ professional qualifications on the implementation of guidance and counselling in Baringo Central Sub-County secondary schools. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design with a sampling frame of 36 secondary schools, 36 principals and 72 teacher-counsellors. The study employed a questionnaire as a means of data collection and the results was analysed using SPSS version 22. Results showed that very few teachers had been fully trained on the interpersonal skills necessary to undertake guidance and counselling within secondary schools. This was bound to negatively affect the implementation of guidance and counselling in the schools. It is recommend that the Ministry of Education and the Teachers’ Servic eCommission should come up with clear policy guidelines on appointment, training of counsellors, workload, remuneration and responsibilities of school counsellors. Further studies should be conducted to determine the factors that influence students’ attitude towards seeking counselling services.