Abstract:
Guidance and counselling have been interwoven with efforts aimed at advancing the educational discourse of students in all disciplines and levels. This is because of the wide recognition that students’ academic performance is greatly influenced by the guidance offered them. This study looks at the guidance services in some Senior high schools in Upper East Region and it was aimed at achieving five objectives: to identify the level of student’s awareness of guidance and counselling services, to examine the various guidance and counselling services provided at the senior high schools, to identify the role of Guidance services and determine the benefits as well as the challenges. Employing the quantitative method and a descriptive research design, 16 counsellors or teachers that serve as counsellors, 14 head teachers, and 325 students were sampled while structured questionnaires were used to collect information from the respondents. The results showed that the majority of students in senior high schools were not aware of the existence of guidance and counselling services in the schools. With regard to the benefits, guidance and counselling helped to improve academic performance, reduce indiscipline, improve school attendance and reduce truancy, thus increasing graduation rate. Schools faced challenges, such as a lack of professionally trained counsellors, a lack of offices with resources and materials as well as a lack of cooperation from the students and staff. Among other matters, the study recommends that the Ghana Education Service, which supervises guidance and counselling, should charge all school counsellors with ensuring that all services, especially career and vocation counselling services, are offered in every school.
