Role of guidance counsellors in school settings: tertiary institution perspective

The paper discusses the role of guidance counsellors in school settings: tertiary institution perspective. Counseling in the tertiary level sometimes overlap with that of the secondary school level. This is because most adolescents get into the university, polytechnics and Colleges with the adult group. Guidance means a programme designed to help an individual understand himself/herself and his/her environment in relation to his/her abilities and limitations. Guidance is a broad programme, which embodies other services aimed at helping an individual to resolve his/her educational, vocational and person-social problems. These services include counselling service, information service placement service, appraisal service, referral service, evaluation and follow-up service. Counselling service is a process in which an individual who is helpless (client) is assisted by an uninvolved individual (counsellor) to overcome his/her helplessness through information, interaction, decision making and conducive environment. A guidance counsellor is a trained professional, who by his training, applies psychological principles in assisting persons with psychological problems; counsellors should possess certain qualities, some of the qualities which are: empathy, genuineness, confidentiality, altruistic, accepting, emotional stability, human oriented, and non-judgmental. The role of guidance counsellor is divided into educational, vocational and personal-social. School counselling requires a professional relationship that defines the inter-relation between the school counsellor and the client.