CHALLENGES FACING THE PROVISION OF SCHOOL GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING PROGRAMME IN TANZANIA

CHALLENGES FACING THE PROVISION OF SCHOOL GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING PROGRAMME.

The Tanzanian government have not yet formulated inside the education policy, issues pertaining guidance and counseling in spite with the crucial and necessity in schools. (Biswalo, 1996), pointed out that in Tanzania policies pertinent to advice and counseling is still lacking. He continued saying that efforts directed in the direction of fulfilling guidance and counseling needs are apparently thwarted by several difficulties including financial resources to support the even established tiny counseling activities in several schools.

In Tanzania schools, till today counseling is relatively new phenomenon. There are no enough qualified counselors in schools and other education institutions. However, there are limited quantity of qualified counselors, they are either not utilized properly in schools or they are engaged in other activities rather than what they are trained for. Some of school counselors are also teachers and they are fully occupied with teaching responsibilities. More surprisingly counseling is perceived as a crucial avenue for only prevention of HIV infection through provision of adequate and relevant information, and for social and psychological support of people infected and affected by the HIV/Aids, (Sima, 2010).

There is slow growth of guidance and counseling in educational systems attributed to lack of funds, training facilities, and high turnover of advice counselors to green pastures and in adequately trained counselors. For instance in many schools they lack counseling offices, trained teacher-counselors and counseling equipment’s. In terms of funds there are various selections that is often explored to alleviate financial constraints. Special schools on behalf of parents in need can approach non-governmental organizations.

Level of training of teacher counsellors and quality of counselling services; this means that the guidance and counselling service providers are untrained in guidance and counselling, even the trained teachers do not cover sufficient courses in guidance and counselling to enable them effectively render the guidance and counselling services.

The absence of solid professional counseling association in Tanzania to set standards for appropriate guidance and counseling practices is another challenge.

Also insufficient availability of professional counselor training programs in Tanzanian colleges and universities is another contributing challenge.

There are no efforts to establish counseling curriculum in secondary schools and colleges and advice and counseling courses in the universities. Guidance and counseling curriculum and responsive services can then be structured to address the five content areas, namely human relationships, profession development, social values, self development, and learning abilities. A guidance curriculum could be taught to students at different levels or in small groups to address issues that are similar to them. For guidance and counseling programs to be effective in Tanzania, trained professionals should be employed to manage and offer services in schools. Such professionals should also be provided with relevant facilities and structural support. At the same time, universities and teacher training institutions will have to establish and develop programs that train professional college counselors as well as other guidance personnel.

There is still insufficient assistance in secondary and higher education institutions to enable students achieves their career aspirations. However, students today indicate a higher need for profession advice than students in the previous decade. Students might therefore be encountering an increased need to acquire relevant career information that will enable them seek better paid jobs. Many schools have inside the previous appointed some teachers as career masters without providing them together with the necessary training and facilities for profession advice. Such profession masters usually assume that all students will end up in universities and only focus on helping students complete university application forms and no more. It is the high time for that government to set and implement the policy that will enhance guidance and counseling from primary schools for the tertiary level and in turn will develop programs that train professional college counselors and other guidance personnel.

Students and head teachers attitude to guidance and counselling and quality of counselling Services; the study has shown that the students have generally negative attitude towards guidance and counselling as only a small percentage of student think it has a role to play in boosting their ability to make informed decisions necessary in enhancing their self understanding and should so be incorporated in schools.  These findings show that high school students have a somewhat negative attitude towards guidance and counselling.  Besides, the study also established that head teachers also had a negative attitude towards guidance and counselling, and it’s necessary in enhancing the level of student’s discipline. 

Guidance and Counselling facilities and quality of counselling services; quality guidance and counselling services require a number of facilities.  These include: office space, bookshelves, drawers, files, finance, time, reference books, guidance and counselling manuals, psychological test materials etc.  The findings indicate that the available guidance and counselling facilities are inadequate.

Teacher counsellors teaching workload and quality of counselling services; it was revealed that teacher counsellors handled the normal workload (more than 18 lessons) per week and also handled less guidance and counseling sessions.  This means that teacher counsellors have little time to dedicate to provision of guidance and counselling services and this has compromised the quality of the counselling services provided at schools.

REFERENCES

Sima R.G. (2010). The Challenges in the Provision of Counseling Services in Secondary Schools in Tanzania, In Paper in Education and Development (PED).

Nkuba, M. (2013). Towards Enabling Career Services Delivery in Tanzania Schools: The Role of Students, Teacher counselors and Heads of Schools: American Based Research Journal. Vol. 2 (4), 1-13.

Biswalo, M.P. (1996). An Introduction to Guidance and counseling: In diverse African contexts. Dar es Salaam: Dar es Salaam University Press.