TOPIC
1: INTRODUCTION OF GUIDANCE
AND COUNSELING
1.1
Definition of guidance and counseling
1.2
Basic principles of counseling
1.3
Basic prepositions in counseling
1.4
Origin and historical development of counseling.
1.5
Purpose of guidance and counseling in Tanzania today.
GUIDANCE
The term has been defined in varied ways, depending on the
culture and environment. At face value guidance has been derived from its root
word ‘guide’ which means direct, pilot, manage, steer, aid, assist, lead,
inform, and interact (Makinde, 1990).
Guidance is a term used to denote the process of helping an
individual to gain self understanding and self direction (self decision making)
so that he/she can adjust maximally to his/her home, school or community
environment. (Biswalo, 1996).
According to Kochhar (1993), guidance has the following
characteristics when dealing with students:
i)
It is a process. It helps every student to help himself, to
recognize and use his/ her inner resources, to set goals, to make plans, to
work out his own problems of development.
ii)
It is a continuous process: it is needed right from early
childhood, adolescence, and adult-hood and even into old age.
iii)
Choice is the distinctive concern of guidance: here the
student’s unique world of perceptions interacts with the external order of
events in his life context where problems are constantly faced and require
effective decisions for one to move forward.
iv)
It is assistance to the individual in the process of
development rather than direction of that development: the aim is to develop
the capacity for self – direction, self-guidance and self- improvement, through
an increased understanding of one’s own problems and resources.
COUNSELING
The ordinary meaning attached to counselling is that of
consultation, discussion, deliberation (consideration, care).
Counseling is a service designed to help an individual
analyze himself by relating his capabilities, achievements, interests and mode
of adjustment to what new decision he/ she has made or has to make (Makinde,
1990).
UNESCO (2008) counseling is a learning-oriented process,
which occurs usually in an interactive relationship, with the aim of helping a
person learn more about the self, and to use such understanding to enable the
person to become an effective member of society.
Counseling takes place when a counsellor sees a client in a
private and confidential setting to explore a difficulty the client is having ,
distress they may be experiencing or perhaps their dissatisfaction with life,
or loss of a sense or direction and purpose (British Association for Counseling
and Psychotherapy, 2001).
Counseling as a profession has its own features, as follows:
i)
Counseling as a professional is a facilitative activity.
Counselor creates conducive situation to the client so as to solve the problem
ii) Counseling
assures confidentiality.
iii) There
is assurance of flexible relationship between a counselor and client (it is
relatively non hierarchical relationship.i.e in the first place client is your
boss because he/she knows more than you about the problem.
iv) Counseling
is mainly guided by exploration of the problem, therefore intensive use of
interview is required
v) Problem
solving is based on understanding the client as an individual.
vi) Make
sure the client accept and own the problem for effective counseling to occur.
vii) The
client should fully engage in finding solutions of the problem.
viii)
The client should voluntarily seek the counseling rather
than being brought for counseling (it is always essential to apply attending
skills which help you to be accepted by a client e.g welcoming skills.
Differences
between Guidance and Counseling
GUIDANCE
|
COUNSELING
|
||
i.
|
Process of helping students to achieve the
self-understanding and self-direction necessary to make informed choices and
move toward personal goals
|
i.
|
Counselling
is based on the understanding of the client’s subjective world. It should
create the opportunity for exploration.
|
ii.
|
Guidance program is a system of services designed to
improve the adjustment of each and every person for whom it was organized
|
ii.
|
Counseling session often takes place in settings with
privacy such as an office or small therapy centre
|
iii.
|
The guidance goals and programs attend to the person’s
developmental needs
|
iii.
|
It can be short, cheaper and more accessible. counseling
takes place over a shorter period of time
|
iv.
|
Guidance is meant for every one, people with problems and
people without problems can all benefit from these services.
|
iv.
|
Counseling is post-problem, meaning a problem has already
been identified and therefore the counselor helps to address the problem but
not to solve it
|
v.
|
The act of making decisions for another person to help
them get somewhere or help them to have a better future.
|
v.
|
Counseling activity adds up to a situation that faced a
client.
|
Guidance is broader than counseling. It is a generic term,
which embraces counseling, information services, appraisal services and
guidance oriented research services. In all these interrelated services, counselling
is the most important. It is the brain as well as the wheel of guidance and the
two are inseparable.
The key
to counseling is communication and the nature of the relationship between the
client and the counselor.
Counseling depends solely on communication, hence
counselling is said to be a ‘talking cure’. Its relationship between counselor
and client is different from those of teacher/ student, doctor/ patient
relationship, father/child relationship due to this focus.
However counseling is different from other relationship
because it needs special skills to build that kind of relationship. It is also
different from other skills because counseling does not allow advice giving to
the client. Client has to take responsibility to in solving his/her problem.
Three
Basic Prepositions in Counseling
The philosophy of counseling as profession can be expressed
in three basic propositions:
i)
Seek to facilitate human development: counselor help the
client develop awareness of their psychosocial selves so as to attain higher
level of functioning.
ii)
Take into account the social, psychological and physical
environment of the client: the counselor can utilize the concept of social
roles and behaviors, coping behaviors and developmental tasks in helping
clients master their environments.
iii)
Seek to facilitate a dynamic balance between person and
environment: when counselors see that clients’ problems arise from the
community, the counselor may intervene in the wider environment for remediation
as well as prevention, thus improving the person-environment balance.
HISTORICAL
DEVELOPMENT OF COUNSELLING
Origin
of counseling as a professional Activity:
Counseling by professional helpers is unique to the 20th
century (Wallace and Lewis (1998).
The origin has been traced back in industrial period in
Europe (McLeod, 1998). Counseling was needed during industrialization.
Counseling was introduced to help people cope with new life style and culture
of working in industries different from subsistence farming.
African
Context:
Counseling in the traditional African societies became
necessary when a member of the community found it difficult to relate with
him/herself as well as with others in the community and displayed unusual
social, intellectual or psychological behavior. Counseling was done to prevent
degeneration of one’s personality and the consequences such as violence,
madness, suicide, homicide etc.
The counselor in the traditional society was a person who
was trusted and respected by both the client and the society. In African
countries counselling is a very new helping profession, it becomes popular now.
Counseling
Services in Tanzania:
In Tanzania is even newer. It started in schools due to the
deterioration in student behavior. Since the introduction of western education,
students became divorced from their traditional culture, which had provided
guidance, and helped whenever they encountered problems
Following the increase of social problems and HIV/AIDS
pandemic, the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training made efforts to
institutionalize guidance and counselling services within the education system
(e.g. introducing career master/ mistress though there was no proper training
given).
The ever growing complexity of the society, coupled with
social problems such as HIV/AIDS and the rapid development of science and
technology, place a heavy demand on education. Before this epidemic there was
no counsellig in Tanzanian Hospitals or communities as there were no professional
counselors, and no formal system for educating counselors existed. Currently
counseling is becoming more popular not only in HIV/AIDS but also for many
other human problems as well.
Purpose
of Guidance and Counseling in Tanzania
i.
Guidance
and counselling services are important for determining career and profession of
learners.
ii.
Information
and advice play in improving the efficiency of education systems and its
utility in the labour markets.
iii.
Career
education has an important role to play within education in laying the
foundations for lifelong career development.
iv.
Guidance
and counselling are particularly important in post compulsory education. Here,
wider curriculum choice results in more diverse and complex routes into later
stages of education, into employment, or into both. This can help to:
· Reducing dropouts from and back-tracking within
education systems, and thus improve internal flows.
· Improving flows between different levels of education,
thus raising national levels of educational attainment
· Improving transitions from education to the labour
market.
These outcomes help to make better use of
educational resources, and to increase both individual and social returns to
investments in education.
REFERENCES:
Achieng, A. A (2007). Guidance and Counseling: An Introduction. Nairobi: Exact
Concepts Publishers.
Mutie, E.K. &
Kyungu, S.P.M. (2011). Guidance and Counseling for Schools and Colleges.
Nairobi: Oxford University Press.
Rogers, C. R.
(1957). The necessary and sufficient conditions of therapeutic personality
change. Journal of Consulting Psychology, 21, 93–103.
Sima, R (2010).
Educational Guidance and Counseling. In I.M. Omari. Educational Psychology for Teachers. Dar es Salaam: Oxford Press.
Tan, E. (2004). Counselling
in Schools: Theories, Processes and Techniques. McGraw-Hill Education (Asia).
