THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING SERVICES AMONG NIGERIA UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING SERVICES AMONG NIGERIA UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
Background to the Study
Guidance and counseling services in the university promote the personal social planning and programming for students with special learning needs. The students need to prepare themselves not only academically but also socially in order for them to gain acceptance into the new community. It’s also good to know that, the undergraduates, even though a good number of them are adults, there is the need to guide them if the purpose which they are in the university is to be achieved. Also, majority of students in the University are faced with anxiety and stress, to be able to handle situation like this, they need counseling. The services of guidance and counseling in tertiary institution is to bring about well guided and properly counseled among university undergraduates who will be leaders of tomorrow because the role of guidance and counseling cannot be over emphasized.
Most university administrators in Nigeria are searching for stability as a way out of crises and a means to restore some lasting tranquility on campuses. Recently, dramatic increase in violence and revolutionary behaviour among students has almost attained a high proportion throughout the world. Guidance and counseling services are needed in order to find lasting solutions to some problems that have plagued institutions of learning for a very long time. Students need counseling programme as a result of these unruly behaviours. In order words, university undergraduates need help to resolve their home, social, academics, health, emotional, vocational, financial and religious problems. The undergraduates at this level are made to understand the nature and complexity of their problems and better means of solving the problems. Fresh students appear to be plagued by the questions self-defined by their present status within the community, by their position within their peer group and by their academic performances in secondary school. Without counseling programme/support, they will feel inferior and be defeated of their social
identities. Difficulties may come the way of new students trying to adjust to the new environment and they will find it painful and hectic. This may be due to the differences they encounter in life when in secondary schools. Values espoused by other students are social climate, course of study, study conditions and degree of freedom and adjustment to these differences oen result in crises of some sort. The crises can be averted if guidance and counseling services are made available to this category of students at the point of entering into the university. Since counseling aims at the total development of the individual persons, it also helps students to find spiritual and ethical measuring in life and help them to live in harmony within the other members of the university community. The inculcation of ethical values through guidance and counseling services will go a long way in curbing irrational behaviours among university undergraduates. Effective
counseling services in the university will constrain students from rebellion against the established rules of their schools organization and destruction of school properties. The student is aspiration should be brought into balance with the goals of their educational institutions and those of their surrounding community will be maintained. Denga (2003) is of the opinion that the need for guidance and counseling in our educational system is increasingly pressing as educational, economic, technological, social and ideological advancements are being made. Each student will need to be helped to strengthen his own abilities to make meaningful and realistic choices and to face problems encountered in the society.
According to Oladele (2007) no matter how good and well constructed an educational policy may be, if guidance and counselling is not given priority and made an integral part of the system, it cannot succeed. Guidance and counselling services within the frame work of education has the potential to help an individual to realistically examine his/her belief and values within the comprehensive nature of the university set up, only good guidance and counselling services can help the undergraduate through social adjustment to take the right decisions and understand himself and his world.
The importance of guidance and counseling services among undergraduates are glaring and inevitable. The services are veritable instruments for achieving success in and out of school. As revealed by findings and conducted by number of Nigerian scholars, among whom are Adugbo (2000), Denga (2003), Allolla (2004), Bello (2007), guidance and counseling services are yet to take o effectively in Nigerian schools generally due to some problems that are yet to be addressed properly.
These problems includes inadequate number of personnel (counselors), lack of materials and facilities for effective guidance services, lack of finance, inadequate time allocated to guidance and counseling services in schools, unhealthy perception of the school head, counselor, students and parents. The need for guidance and counseling services amongst Nigerian university students cannot be compromised if the universities must actualize the goals for which they were established. So it is important for the universities to properly design counseling services to interpret the goals of the constitution the students and his family in term of its ability to satisfy students’ educational, vocational, social and personal needs. Also it is important for the achievement of academic goals and aspiration in the university.

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THE NEED FOR GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING SERVICES AMONG NIGERIA UNIVERSITY STUDENTS