Influence of Guidance and Counselling on Students’ Discipline in Koforidua Technical University
Need help with a related project topic or New topic? Send Us Your Topic
DOWNLOAD THE COMPLETE PROJECT MATERIAL
Influence of Guidance and Counselling on Students’ Discipline in Koforidua Technical University
ABSTRACT
All stakeholders in the education business are concerned about disciplinary cases in tertiary institutions. Discipline reduces academic attainment. Schools continue to deal with discipline difficulties, despite the Ministry of Education’s policy requiring all schools to establish guidance and counselling programs as an alternative disciplinary action.
This study was conducted in the Eastern Region of Koforidua Technical University to investigate how guidance and counselling services affect students’ academic performance in tertiary institutions.
The researcher’s objectives included determining how much the availability of advise and counselling resources, professors’ exposure, peer training, guest speakers, and time allowed for student counselling at Koforidua Technical University in Ghana affected students’ behaviour.
The researcher used a descriptive survey design to conduct the investigation. Twenty university staff, 20 professors, and 144 form 4 students participated in the study as respondents.
The data were analysed using descriptive statistics and percentages. According to the study’s findings, guidance and counselling services were provided at schools, and 82.4% of staff members believed they were important, but they lacked the necessary resources and literature to support them.
According to the literature review, character development occurs through rigorous official and informal supervision and counselling programs. Counselling and mentoring help students keep their discipline and focus throughout life.
According to Collins (2002), advice and counselling assist children develop discipline and become prepared to deal with the challenges and realities they face in their academic, social, and physical surroundings.
The suggestions are as follows. College personnel should establish counselling and advising services, as well as provide a confidential environment. This will result in more students coming into the office. Guidance and counselling lecturers should have extensive training in order to perform their roles effectively.
Making an appropriate budget for the provision of advice and counselling materials, as well as the use of peer counselling, is required to assure their timely and financial availability. Special invited guests should provide counselling to pupils in areas of concern.
It is recommended that a replication of this study be undertaken in an urban setting, as it was conducted at Koforidua Technical University, which is primarily a local institution.
It is critical to undertake study into how parental or guardian rearing influences student discipline. It is critical to do research on the impact of a limited integration of advice and counselling in specific subjects.
Chapter one
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background of the Study
Counselling and guidance play an important role in sustaining social order in all communities. Even the most primitive societies arose from the necessity to regulate individual behaviour in the group’s best interests.
Without discipline, society as a whole could not function. According to Guidance and Counselling to Enhance Discipline, people must cooperate to achieve a common goal on a regular basis.
Young people today face chronic challenges such as a lack of awareness of sexuality, parental irresponsibility, strained relationships, poverty, and economic pressure (Orodo, 2008). Failure, criticism, embarrassment, and parental attitudes can all have an emotional impact on young people.
According to Herdrikz (2006), lecturers and school administration are responsible for ensuring that students develop progressively along their own unique paths and exhibit suitable attitudes and behaviours both within and outside of school.
According to Meyer (1991), discipline concerns in schools are possibly the most pressing concern for educators worldwide. According to Meyer, the United States of America has identified discipline concerns in schools as critical school issues.
Agenga and Simatwa (2011) cited the incident at Colobine High School in Colorado, USA, in which two heavily armed teens fatally shot themselves after killing twelve pupils, one lecturer, and nearly two dozen others.
When a study of 20 school counsellors in Malawi’s southern and central regions was done to examine the primary difficulties, it became clear that the country required direction and counselling. It has been recognised that guiding and counselling programs must have a clear justification and guidelines. Francis, Taylor (1998).
The primary goal is to teach the client how to deal with himself and the realities of his environment more effectively. In Alexandria, Egypt, mainstream government schools teach 2170 preparatory and university students. Allis and Kame (1999) conducted a cross-sectional survey of indiscipline among these students.
The investigation focused on student indiscipline and its underlying elements. Only a small percentage of incidences of indiscipline were linked to family history, while the majority were due to the children themselves.
Schools are social institutions with many goals to achieve, and the role of guidance and counselling is critical in developing students’ sense of discipline.
Counselling is a discipline that helps individuals or groups gain self-awareness so that they can be real. Burks and Steffler (1979) define counselling as the professional relationship between a trained Counsellor and a client.
Olayinka (1972) defined it as a process in which a person receives assistance in a face-to-face relationship, whilst Makinde (1983) described it as an enlightened process in which people help others by nurturing their advancement.
Counselling is a process that helps clients comprehend and clarify their personal perspectives on their lives, as well as learn how to achieve their self-determined goals by making meaningful, informed decisions and resolving interpersonal or emotional issues. It believes that everyone has the potential for personal development, self-actualization, and growth.
Even though the Ministry of Education first introduced advising and counselling to Ghana in 1967, it has been engrained in traditional African society since antiquity. The Gachathi Report of the National Committee on Education Objectives and Policies, released in 1976 in the Republic of Ghana, states that the Ministry of Education should be in charge of providing counselling services.
Despite the instructions, the use of guidance and counselling services was insufficient to help reduce the escalating indiscipline in various institutions. To confront societal changes, we must now adopt the western world’s concept of professional guidance and counselling. Gitonga (2007) laments that parents do not have enough time to raise their children well due to financial and academic issues.
The result is a permissive parenting style, which is harmful to the developing child. A permissive parenting style has no constraints or guidelines. Wangai (1994) supports this idea by pointing out that modernisation in Africa has resulted in the breakdown of traditional social order.
He emphasised the importance of clear, supportive, and progressive policies in addressing the bulk of children’s concerns through education. These rules can be implemented by adding counselling and advising into university curricula.
The third force in education, following instruction and counselling, is an important part of the educational system. University guidance programs address the physical, emotional, social, occupational, and intellectual issues that adolescent students face.
This will enhance classroom education and boost students’ academic performance and achievements. Seeking counsel can help university students avoid academic, personal, social, mental, and emotional problems.
According to the Republic of Ghana’s 1988 Report of the Presidential Workshop Party on Education and Manpower Training, university counselling and mentoring are critical to fostering discipline.
The research advised that guidance and counselling programs assist students in developing good attitudes towards discipline as well as understanding who they are and their role in the workforce.
Indiscipline at universities has gotten worse, particularly since the early 2000s, when the Ministry of Education abolished corporal punishment in a gazette notice on March 13, 2001. The ban on canes has been blamed for frequent complaints of school disruption.
Counselling helps students feel more connected to their teachers, which fosters positive connections. Positive discipline is ensured by allowing students to express themselves and understand the consequences of their behaviour.
Discipline is part of a very old tradition that may have existed from the beginning of time. School administrators control student discipline through counselling and mentoring. Discipline is an important part of the educational system because it helps pupils maintain their moral standards. It seeks to restrict, regulate, and redirect behaviour. All students in a school system must understand the regulations before
Franken (1998) states that there is a possibility of disciplinary action. (1998). The concept of balancing guidance and counselling with discipline helps determine the importance of G&C for children in schools.
In order to maintain excellent discipline in children, parents and schools collaborate to promote the concepts and standards that we feel will help young people build sound behavioural guidelines for their lives.
Despite the Ministry of Education’s efforts to give guidance and counselling services to schools, complaints of indiscipline in tertiary institutions continue to emerge, and Koforidua Technical University is no exception.
At Koforidua Technical University in the Eastern Region, the researcher intended to look into how counselling and mentoring affected students’ disciplinary behaviour.
1.2 Statement of the Problem
Despite the use of monitoring and counselling, tertiary institutions continue to struggle with discipline issues. Wangai (1994) observes that young people enjoy luxury and pleasure.
They are impolite and disrespectful to elders and others in positions of power. Parents, professors, and religious leaders routinely blame one another of failing to teach children appropriate behaviour.
Many parents have abandoned the professors they had entrusted with teaching their children. Despite the fact that every institution has a lecturer-counselor designated by the Ministry of Education, Koforidua Technical University has not been an anomaly in terms of indiscipline.
According to information received from the education officer of Koforidua Technical University, students went on strike in 2009. This incident, along with prior ones, prompted researchers to investigate how to restore adequate discipline in educational institutions.
This study investigated how guidance and counselling effect discipline in tertiary institutions at Koforidua Technical University in the Eastern Region.
1.3 The goal of the study
The goal of this study was to look into the impact of guidance and counselling services on student discipline at Koforidua Technical University in the Eastern Region.
1.4 Objectives of the Study
To achieve the study’s purpose, the following objectives were examined:
To ascertain the extent to which the provision of guidance and counselling resources influences student counselling at Koforidua Technical University.
To determine the extent to which lecturer-counsellors’ exposure to training affects students’
To determine the influence of training in peer counselling on students’
To determine the extent to which guest speakers in advice and counselling affect students’
To assess the extent to which the time spent on student counselling effects students’
1.5 Research questions.
The following questions served as a guide to this study:
How much influence does staff’s provision of guidance and counselling materials and facilities have on university students’ discipline at Koforidua Technical University?
To what extent does lecturers’ and counsellors’ exposure to training effect students’ discipline in universities?
How much affect does peer counselling training have on university students’ discipline?
How much do guest speakers’ mentoring and counselling sessions influence students’ discipline in universities?
To what extent does counselling time influence university students’ discipline at Koforidua Technical University?
1.6 Significance of the Study
The findings of this study will help individuals involved in education understand the importance of counselling and advising in preserving discipline among university students.
Some teachers and school administrators would recognise the need of counselling and advice in instilling discipline in students, and they would be encouraged to get professional training in the discipline so that they could carry it out effectively.
The advice and counselling services would assist students in focussing on their lives, becoming responsible citizens, improving time management skills, and adhering to moral standards.
1.7 Study Limitations
Best and Kahn (1998) define limitations as circumstances beyond the researcher’s control that may limit the study’s conclusions and applicability in other scenarios. The study included the following key limitations:
Clear data collection was hampered since some respondents were unwilling to disclose their information. Some respondents were hesitant to respond, making it difficult for the researcher to complete the survey on schedule.
Although the researcher had no control over the respondents’ opinions and viewpoints, reliable data for analysis was obtained. The researcher reassured the respondents about their anonymity and encouraged them to be candid.
1.8 Study Limits
The research was limited to Koforidua Technical University’s tertiary institutions. Every effort was made to ensure that the sampling procedure was appropriate for acquiring the data required for conclusion-making. Staff, lecturers, and form four students were chosen as the important replies because they were the most direct recipients of the researcher’s concerns.
1.9 Definitions of Significant Terms
Administration refers to the coordination of all people’s efforts in an organisation to achieve common goals.
Attitude refers to a good or negative inclination to think, feel, perceive, and behave in a specific way in response to a given scenario.
Career Counselling is the process of offering, advising, and cautioning students who may be making the wrong career choice.
The term “client” refers to a learner who receives advice and counselling from a professional helper, also known as counsellor.
Counselling is a helping process that uses the safety of a special relationship between the counsellor and the counselee to explore the counsellor’s thoughts, feelings, and attitudes with the goal of tapping into the counsellor’s resources to effect healing and change.
A counsellor is a professional who has the ability to assist individuals deal with life’s issues by building relationships with them.
Discipline is a system of guiding an individual to make acceptable decisions and uphold social standards both individually and in groups.
An effect is a change brought about by an action, a cause, or an outcome.
Guidance refers to all of the activities provided by educational institutions that are primarily focused with helping individual students understand themselves, including their needs, interests, abilities, and potentials. Guidance also refers to advice given to students to help them choose the proper path in their academic and social lives.
Influence- refers to the pull that external stimuli have on kids to modify their character while they are in school.
Morals refer to a person’s proper conduct in life.
Respondents are the individuals who directly answer questions in a research study.
Students are a group of people who are involved in the learning process at school.
Lecturer- refers to a professional lecturer who is also a trained counsellor who conducts counselling in a school context.
1.10 Organisation of the Study
The study included five chapters. Chapter one covered the study’s setting, statement, purpose, aims, basic research assumptions, and operational word definitions.
The first section of Chapter 2 covered introduction, the concept of education, guidance, and counselling, historical development, the need for guidance and counselling, and the various types of counselling.
It also covered government involvement in guidance and counselling, counselling, the role of staff in managing discipline in schools, a program for guidance and counselling and managing discipline in universities, as well as personal and social advice and counselling approaches.
The following sections of the chapter address the challenges that school administrators will confront in adopting counselling and guidance, as well as theoretical and conceptual frameworks and a literature review.
In Chapter 3, the research methodology was described. These included the research design, the intended audience, the sample size and methodology, the research instruments, the techniques for data collection, and data analysis.
Chapter four featured the field study’s analysis and interpretation, while chapter five covered the summary, conclusions, suggestions, and ideas for future research.
Need help with a related project topic or New topic? Send Us Your Topic