Introduction

Seckle (1999) has stressed the need for specialised support in guidance and counselling in higher education, noting that each tertiary education lecturer/teacher should be familiar with the basic principles by which problems can be identified and appropriate interventions suggested to learners. The need for support for the tertiary teacher is becoming increasingly important. As we discussed in Module 1, learners in the higher education system come form a diversity of learning backgrounds. This means that there is diversity in their entry socio-economic and academic profiles, which translates into a differential in their behaviour patterns. Attention was paid to the subject of guidance and counseling in light of this diversity of quality higher education. There is the need to identify specialists who are trained to offer guidance and counseling services. The higher education teacher who is not trained should not be expected to offer such specialised services.

The variety of mix in preferences, interests and cognitive competencies in the school system require that learners are assisted in focusing and addressing their own particular interests if they are to receive quality higher education. This is done through guidance and counselling. The goal of guidance and counselling is to make it possible for an individual to see and explore his or her unlimited endowed options (Odeck, 1999). Educationally, guidance should involve those experiences which assist each learner to understand and and accept oneself so as to live effectively in society.

Down through the ages, a scheme of guidance and counselling has been found to be essential for all categories of learners. At the higher education level, this need becomes accentuated as we have the greatest mix of interests, preferences and cognitive competencies in the school system. Attention is turned in this module to the subject of guidance and counselling as a way for improving the quality of higher education.

What is Guidance and Counselling ?

Guidance is a broad term that is applied to a school’s programme of activities and services that are aimed at assisting students to make and carry out adequate plans and to achieve satisfactory adjustment in life. Guidance can be defined as a process, developmental in nature, by which an individual is assisted to understand, accept and utilise his/her abilities, aptitudes and interests and attitudinal patterns in relation to his/her aspirations. Guidance as an educational construct involves those experiences, which assist each learner to understand him/herself, accept him/herself and live effectively in his/her society. This is in addition to the learner having learning experiences about the world of work and people therein.

Guidance can also be looked at as a programme of services to people based upon the need of each individual, an understanding of his/her immediate environment, the influence of environmental factors on the individual and the unique features of each school. Guidance is designed to help each person adjust to his/her environment, develop the ability to set realistic goals for him/herself, and improve his/her total educational programme. As a process, guidance is not a simple event but it involves a series of actions or steps progressively moving towards a goal. As a service, we can isolate three major services, that of educational, vocational, and personal and social guidance.

1. Educational Guidance

Educational guidance is so far as it can be distinguished from any other from of guidance, is concerned with the provision of assistance to pupils in their choices in and adjustment to the schools' curriculum and school life in general. Educational guidance is therefore essential in counselling service. Guiding young people to pursue the right type of education in which, for example the right balance is met for accommodating the human resource needs of a nation.

2. Vocational Guidance

Vocational guidance is a process of helping individuals to choose an occupation, prepare for, enter into and progress in it. Vocational happiness requires that a person's interests, aptitudes and personality be suitable for his/her work. It plays its part by providing individuals with a comprehension of the world of work and essential human needs, thus familiarising individuals with such terms as `dignity of labour' and `work value'.

3. Personal and Social Guidance

Personal and social guidance is the process of helping an individual on how to behave with consideration to other people. Primarily, personal and social guidance helps the individual to understand oneself, how to get along with others, manners and etiquette, leisure time activities, social skills, family and family relationships and understanding masculine and feminine roles.

Counselling is usually viewed as one part of guidance services; It is subsumed by the general term, guidance, in that it is one service within guidance rather than a synonym. It is difficult to think of one definition of counselling. This is because definitions of counselling depend on the theoretical orientation of the person defining it. Let us examine some of these definitions.

Counselling is learning-oriented process which usually occurs in an interactive relationship with the aim of helping the person learn more:

• about the self
• about others
• about situations and events related to given issues and conditions
• and also to learn to put such understanding to being an effective member of the society.

It is a process in which the helper expresses care and concern towards the person with a problem to facilitate that person's personal growth and positive change through self-understanding. Counselling denotes a relationship between a concerned person and a person with a need. This relationship is usually person-to-person, although sometimes it may involve more than two people. It is designed to help people understand and clarify their views of their life-space, and to learn to reach their self-determined goals through meaningful, well-informed, choices and through resolution of problems of an emotional or interpersonal nature. It can be seen from these definitions that counselling may have different meanings.

Need for Guidance and Counselling

In my opinion, higher education learners come in with an assortment of characteristics. In that module, we also identified what their exit profiles should be. Between entry and exit, we have some intervention, which include curricular, co-curricular and extra-curricular activities. Guidance and counselling come into play in this intervention to enable us achieve our goal of producing good quality graduates.

The table below summarises some of the major reasons why we need guidance and counselling in higher institutions:

The major service areas of guidance and counselling are:

• Educational guidance and counselling which assists students in their curriculum and school life choices.
• Vocational guidance which assists the individual to choose and prepare for an occupation that is compatible with his interests and aptitudes.
• Personal and social guidance which assists the individual to behave appropriately in relation to other members of the society.

Counselling could be conceived as an interactive relationship between two or more persons that can take a variety of forms. It may address non-educational issues or even non-counselling concerns. Counselling should be seen as a service provided to normal individuals to assist them remove or cope with frustrations and obstacles that interfere with their development.

Guidance and Counselling in Teaching

In institutions of higher learning, guidance and counselling should address learners’ difficulties. These difficulties encompass the whole spectrum of student life in institutions of higher learning. A number of them may have negative impact on the teaching/learning process. Counselling should probe what students’ difficulties are and then approach them systematically. For example, in diagnosing learning difficulties the lecturer should focus on the following aspects:

• Difficulties that arise during instruction: these may be related to the content, the lecturer or the way of presentation.
• Difficulties after instruction: these may be related to social activities of the student or they may be related to the facilities themselves.

In such cases where should the information come from? The sources of relevant information about learners can be found or gleaned through the following:

Individual observation

This requires that individual lecturers are keen in noting any strange things that happen to the students or with the students. The observation should arise out of a genuine desire to help and get involved with the students.

Student statements

Students invariably make statements and comments which are indicative of the struggles that they may face. The lecturers should be prepared to note these comments and statements which are indicative of or are symptoms of other things that may appear later.

Student records and follow up

These usually yield information that would facilitate a lecturer to assist a student whose problem may have been ignored or brushed aside for along time.

Major Service Areas:

The major service areas of guidance and counselling include:

Educational guidance and counselling

This aspect of counselling should concern itself with assisting the students in their curriculum and school life choices. Students need assistance in subject choice and planning for the courses that they take at these institutions of higher learning. All lecturers could be involved in this without any need for specialised training in counselling.

Vocational guidance and counselling

This aspect of counselling addresses the learners’ problems as regards to vocational choices. Again here the lecturers are best placed to give relevant advice to learners since they know their academic strengths and weaknesses in areas that may pertain to specific vocations, occupations or jobs. The fact that the lecturers know the interests and aptitudes of most of their students makes them the best persons to assist their students in areas that are related to their vocations.

Personal and social guidance and counselling

This aspect of counselling refers to the very personal problems that students meet. These problems may range from financial needs to interpersonal relationships. Although the lecturers may help to reduce these pressures, there is need for more specialised assistance from professionally trained hands. The fact that the lecturers may have an upper hand in interaction with the students only goes to show how crucial it is that they should get involved. As role models to the majority of students it is important the lectures are made aware of their crucial role in social guidance.

Aspects of Counselling:

1. Educational Counselling

First coined by Truman Kelley in 1914 (Makinde, 1988), educational counselling is a process of rendering services to pupils who need assistance in making decisions about certain important aspect of their education such as choice of courses and studies, decision on interest and ability, choices of college and high school. Educational counselling increases pupil's knowledge of educational opportunities.

2. Personal/Social Counselling

Personal counselling deals with emotional distress and behavioural difficulties that arise when an individual struggles to cope with developmental stages and tasks. Any facet of development can be turned into a personal adjustment problem, and it is inevitable that everyone will at some time encounter exceptional difficulty with an ordinary challenge of life. For example;

• Anxiety over a career decision
• Lingering anger over an interpersonal conflict
• Insecurity about getting older
• Depressive feelings when bored with work
• Excessive guilt about a serious mistake
• A lack of assertion and confidence
• Grief over the loss of a loved one
• Disillusionment and loneliness after parents divorce.
• Failure in examinations
• Inability to make friends
• Conflict with lecturers

3. Vocational Counselling

Vocational counselling is defined as individual contacts with counsellees in which the counsellor's main purpose is to facilitate the counsellee's career development process. This definition and category would encompass counselling situations such as:

• Helping students become aware of the many occupations available for exploration.
• Interpreting an occupational interest inventory to a student
• Assisting a teenager in deciding what to do after school.
• Helping a student apply for a course in a university or technikon.
• Role playing a job interview with a counsellee in preparation for the real job interview.

Characteristics of Counsellors:

The following are some of the characteristics of a higher education teacher as a counsellor;

- abiding interest and faith in students capabilities

- understanding of students' aspirations

- sympathetic attitude

- friendliness

- sense of humour

- patience

- objectivity

- sincerity

- tact

- fairness

- tolerance

Tips for the Higher Education Teacher when Counselling Students

• Assist the student to make adjustment to life in the university, polytechnic or college of education.
• Encourage the student to participate in appropriate college/university activities with a view toward increasing his or her effectiveness in personal and social actitivities.
• Show concern for and assist in the planning of the student's educational, career, personal, and social development.
• Aid the student in self-evaluation, self-understanding, and self-direction, enabling him or her to make decisions consistent with immediate and long-rage goals to higher education opportunity granted him or her.
• Assist the student in developing healthy and positive attitudes and values
• Help the student to acquire a better understanding of the world of work through the acquisition of skills and attitudes and/or participation in work-related programmes.
• Encourage the student to plan and utilise leisure time activities well.
• Assists the student in understanding his strengths, weakness, interest, values, potentialities and limitations.

References:

Best, R. (2000). Concepts in pastoral care and. Pastoral Care And Personal-Social Ed, 1.

Best, R. E., Jarvis, G. B., & Ribbins, P. M. (1977). Pastoral care: Concept and process. British Journal of Educational Studies, 25(2), 124-135.

​Ipaye, T. (1983). Guidance and counselling practices. University of Ife Press.

Naicker, A. (1994). The psycho-social context of career counselling in South African schools. South African Journal of Psychology, 24(1), 27-34.