Assessment of Personal and Administrative Challenges Facing School Counsellors of Senior Secondary Schools in Adamawa State, Nigeria

Abstract

This study assessed the personal and administrative challenges faced by Secondary School Counsellors of Adamawa state of Nigeria in their delivery of guidance and counselling services in order to understand the struggles. Using the descriptive research design, a total of one0hundred fifty (150) senior secondary school counsellors were randomly selected in the five educational zones of Adamawa State in Nigeria and took part as participants of the study. The primary data-gathering tool utilized in the study involved a self-developed questionnaire which was validated by experts, pilot-tested and with an ascertained reliability coefficient of 0.786. The results revealed that among the personal challenges of school counsellors when delivering guidance and counselling services include computer illiteracy, inability to render home-based counselling, poor counsellor integrity, and stress. The administrative challenges besetting the counsellors on the other hand include the administrators’ perception of counsellors, non-counselling tasks, limited funds, poor formal structure, poor support for training, engagement of teachers as counsellors, poor incentives, insufficient clarity, lack of cooperation and poor monitoring. Moreover, t-test and ANOVA analysis revealed that there are significant differences in the mean response scores of respondent-counsellors along personal challenges (t = - 3.23; p = 0.00) and administrative challenges respectively, with F (2, 150) = 53.04; p = 0.00). These findings are imperative in policy decisions, professional development initiatives and targeted interventions that would redound to the improvement of counsellors’ effectiveness and enhancement of the quality of guidance and counselling services.