Abstract
A school's guidance and counseling program helps students align their skills, interests, and values in order to reach their maximum potential. All of this aims to enhance students' perceptions of themselves and enable improved academic performance.
In order to demonstrate the value of guidance and counseling services in the Sokoto metropolis, a descriptive survey research approach was employed in this study. Students from secondary schools in the Sokoto metropolitan, including boarding, day, and private schools, make up the study's population. The method employed in this research was random sampling procedures, and the samples of four (4) schools were chosen within the Sokoto metropolis, with the sample of fifty (50) students being taken from each school to reflect the population. Questionnaires were employed as the research instrument, and simple percentage calculations were used to analyze the results. The main finding of this study is that the majority of female students want to be doctors. We also learn that as parents' educational levels have significantly grown, more children are aspiring to higher education. We also learn that parents have little real influence over their children's career decisions. It was suggested that students should receive sufficient guidance from the relevant authorities in choosing the best professional path, and more female students should be encouraged to pursue careers in medicine, particularly in northern Nigeria. Also, we urge school administrators to set up a variety of guidance and counseling activities and to invite professionals from other fields to give lectures, particularly to final-year students.
CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the Study
Counseling and guidance are two ideas that are intimately tied to one another and one affects the availability and effectiveness of the other. Makinde (1984) and Patterson (1977) both define "guidance" as a wide category encompassing all educational initiatives and services designed to help particular pupils better comprehend who they are and how to function in a school environment. The Ministry of Education in Nigeria defined guiding as a continuous process that aims to identify and meet the developmental needs of "learners" in 1977. According to Mutie and Ndambuki (1999), "counselling" is an interactive, learning-oriented process that often takes place with the goal of assisting the client in discovering more about himself or herself. So, the goal of counseling and guidance is to help people reach their full potential so that both they and society as a whole can benefit. The program helps students in schools align their skills, interests, and values so they can reach their maximum potential. It provides guidance to kids on choosing acceptable careers and courses, dealing with behavioral, academic, social, and psychological issues, and generally adjusting to school life (Gerardo, 1996).
In the early 1900s, guiding and counseling were first developed in Europe and the United States. In the United States, a man by the name of Goodwin created a comprehensive guidance program in 1911 that catered to students. The focus was on lowering exam anxiety and increasing knowledge of the workplace, location of employment, and vocational information (Makinde,1984). He pointed out that since the 1950s, public perceptions of guidance and counseling have drastically evolved, and that one of the duties of school guidance and counseling is to comprehend young people's difficulties. A study on the impact of counseling on students was conducted in the USA using a random sample of 100 counselor education programs. The study discovered that a student's academic performance is strongly impacted by counseling and assistance. This shows that the majority of schools have prioritized academic success and, more specifically, the use of guidance and counseling programs. Due to this growth, teacher counselors increasingly offer advice and counseling services at secondary schools to gifted children who are unsure how to use their gifts as well as underachieving and poorly adjusted pupils.
The origins of contemporary advice and counseling can be traced to Africa in the 1960s. For instance, Makinde (1984) notes that Ibadan hosted Nigeria's first systematic, planned professions advising program for students. At the end of 1970, the service made the decision to increase counseling activities nationwide and establish a wider association that would include career counselors and career masters. The first formal guidance and counseling program was established in Nigeria in the 1960s (Kilonzo, 1984). The program was initially used in the nation in 1963 during the first Guidance and Counseling Career Conference, which was conducted to talk about students' career choices in educational institutions (Oketch & Ngumba, 1999). It encompasses all programs and services aimed at assisting a student in coming to terms with himself, his character, interests, and skills, as well as his physical, mental, and social maturity for optimum growth and general acclimatization to school life (Mutie & Ndambuki, 1999). The National Committee on Educational Objectives and Policies (NCEOP), Government of Nigeria-G.o.K., later strengthened and highlighted the program (1976, 1988, 1999, 2001).
All of these commissions reaffirmed and stressed the necessity of empowering advice and counseling in order for it to successfully accomplish the aforementioned goals in schools. All educational institutions in the nation have been ordered by the Ministry of Education to implement guidance and counseling programs as a continuous sequential education process with the goal of bridging the gap between one education level and another. The government's decree to outlaw corporal punishment in schools has further highlighted the need to improve guidance and counseling (G.O.K., 2001). Gichinga (1995) noted that there is a relationship between the program and academic achievement and notes that counseling and guidance have an impact on the lives of secondary school pupils. However, according to G.O.K., academic performance in the majority of secondary schools in the nation has been declining while disciplinary issues have been growing over time, in spite of the ministerial directive to implement and effect guidance and counseling programs in all learning institutions in order to uplift the academic standards of students.
The term "career" has a broad and technical connotation when used in the counseling industry. Technically, it refers to the progression of a role or a position that may include a variety of occupations, vocations, or tasks one engages in throughout his working life. It also includes leisure activities and educational pursuits (Seligman, 1980).
Career, according to the international Encyclopedia Britannica (1978), is a job that a person can advance in during their working life in order to receive more responsibility and money.
Career can also be defined as an individual's entire lifetime of employment that has evolved into their primary source of income (Kolo, 1991). Before, choosing a career wasn't as challenging as it is now. There were fewer employment opportunities, but more crucially, parents, educators, and religious organizations were aware of these opportunities and the qualifications needed to apply for them. Due to the fact that secondary school students nowadays seldom fully understand the qualifications required for each job and are unable to keep up with the plethora of career opportunities, guidance and counseling was established in order to help secondary students make a career decision.
Guiding and counseling is a helpful profession that focuses on healing, reconstructing, and reforming troubled individuals. It is a self-revealing connection that can be used to treat and avoid maladaptive behavior. It is widely acknowledged that counseling and guiding services are for all people, including those who have issues and those who are healthy and abnormal.
Yet, the introduction of contemporary advice and counseling in secondary schools in Nigeria was made possible by the recognition of the demand for a more sophisticated and comprehensive package to assist people in resolving the issues and worries of modern life.
On the other hand, counseling has been defined by Makinde (1987) as a service designed to help an individual analyze himself by capabilities, achievements, and interest mode of adjustment towards what new decision he has made or has made. Okon (1984) defined guidance as a total program of a number of highly specialized activities implemented by specialists to help individuals make wise and intelligent choice and decisions.
Since guidance and counseling is a profession, it follows that effective counseling requires the application of fundamental principles of effective helping. Yet among these are the concepts of comprehension, sequential process, appreciating self-disclosure, and ethical behavior. These interventions not only increase the effectiveness of counseling but also strengthen the specialist of the therapeutic alliance.
For guidance to be effective, it must be viewed as a sequence of planned actions that assist the typical schoolchild in knowing himself/herself as an individual and growing in self-awareness, experience his/her world and those individuals he/she relate with it is a dynamic process which experiences constant change over time since it is not a single event but a sequence of events, stages or action which are aimed towards the general development of the individual. Thus, guidance and counseling play a key role in the profession decision of the kids.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
One of the developmental responsibilities for secondary school pupils is career preparation because it is crucial to achieving adult independence. The career role of secondary school pupils has a significant impact on their future happiness and security. Despite the expanding generation's need for job awareness, our secondary school students1 are still faced with a wide range of professional options, which makes making changes to their careers challenging.
The majority of students, according to experience and personal interactions with them, still know very little about the various careers that are accessible on the labor market, their requirements, and basic characteristics. The most important fact is that the majority of secondary school pupils in our country lack sufficient understanding about themselves in respect to various occupations.
The majority of schools in Nigeria offer programs that are insufficiently diverse to accommodate all of the students' career preferences. The majority of students in these schools lack guidance and counseling services, or the environment is subpar. As a result, students are more likely to make poor career decisions or none at all because there is no counselor to help them until they have completed their education.
The selection of subjects and courses was influenced by a lack of knowledge. The kids' choices, their parents' choices, their friends' suggestions, and tensions between their freedoms of employment and the needs of the nation in terms of labor exist in addition to this problem.
This research will also look at the issues of guidance and counseling, career choice, and aspirations of students at these levels because the inability of secondary school students to develop realistic career plans is a serious problem. Given that these issues have an impact on the students' choice and aspirations, which have serious implications for their future and, by extension, the society at large, this research will look at these issues.
1.3 Objectives of the Study
The broad objectives of this study is to investigate into the impact of access to guidance and counseling on career choice in the area of study. The specific objectives include:
1. To justify the effectiveness or other wise of counseling services in schools under review,
2. To find out the roles of guidance and counseling to the students’ academic performance of then schools under review
3. To identify the career choice of the students in secondary schools of the study area.
4. To investigate the effects of career choice on the future of the secondary school students in the area under review.
5. To explore the factors influencing the career choice of secondary school students in Sokoto metropolis
1.4 Research Question
This research is an attempt to answer the following questions:
1. What are the roles of guidance and counseling services in students academic performance of the area under review?
2. What roles do guidance and counseling services play in career choice of secondary school students of the schools under review?
3. Is there need to improve guidance and counseling services in the area under review.
4. What are career choices of the students in the school under study?
5. Do parents and occupational status influences the career of their children?
6. What are those factors that influence secondary school students’ career choice in the area of study?
1.5 Scope and Delimitation
The Sokoto metropolis spans a huge region and is home to more than (50) fifty senior and junior secondary schools that are held by the federal government, states, and private individuals. The study's time and funding are both limited, but its focus is on students' academic performance and career choices.
1.6 Significance of the Study
Consequently, making decisions is crucial because they are the most difficult in life. Choosing a career is typically a worry for young people, who guidance and counseling officers may be able to assist. The study will assist in resolving disputes between parents and students on job choices.
The study is important for parents, students, the community, and the government because it will highlight the areas where the field of guidance work needs improvement and explain why well-counseled kids should perform well academically and have successful careers.
This project will also educate school administrators about the value of guidance and counseling services in educational settings.
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