Professional challenges to counselling practice in primary schools in Anambra State, Nigeria: The way forward

Abstract

This study investigated the professional challenges to counselling practice of primary school counsellors in Anambra State. The population for the study was all the 415 counsellors practicing in the primary schools and all the 26 desk officers in the state. The population of the study is small so there was no sample; on the whole 441 counsellors were used for the study. Two research questions and two null hypotheses were used and descriptive survey design was adopted. Instrument used for data collection was the questionnaire developed by the researchers while percentage and t-test were used for data analysis. Findings from the study revealed that there are professional challenges in the primary school counselling as opined by the counsellors. In addition, all the counsellors agreed on all the items on how to move counselling practice forward. Based on the findings, recommendations were made including that counsellors should be exposed to on-line counselling through training in order to keep pace with the present level of globalization. Key words: Counsellors, counselling practice, primary school, professional challenges