School Counsellors' Perceptions of Guidance and Counseling in Secondary Schools in Botswana

Abstract

This paper explores school counsellors' perceptions of guidance and counselling services in secondary schools in Botswana. It focuses on their needs, the problems they meet and what they think should be done to improve the counselling situation. In addition perceptions of the administration's attitudes, support from other members of staff and the school counsellors' workload as well as their overall assessment of the programme are discussed. The inquiry emerged from a study of the literature, personal experiences and practice as well as discussions with other school counsellors. Questionnaire data are analysed using descriptive statistics to provide information on the needs and difficulties school counsellors face in their everyday duties. Results indicate that although most of the teachers are not qualified in counselling, they are of the view that counselling helps pupils to change in behaviour and perform better in school work by sharing their problems and difficulties with counsellors, thereby devoting more time to their studies than personal problems. It has also been established that participants require training, more time for counselling and a private room to do their counselling. The challenges they face include lack of reading and counselling materials, lack of support from other teachers and inadequate time for counselling due to their teaching loads. Workshops and seminars have been cited as other means of improving counselling programmes. Keywords: School, perception, counsellors, guidance and counselling, BotswanaNigerian Journal of Guidance and Counselling Vol. 13 (1) 2008: pp. 158-170