THE LEVEL OF TRAINING OF TEACHER COUNSELORS IN SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN KAMARINY DIVISION OF KEIYO DISTRICT, KENYA (Published)
In any institution, the guidance and counselling department is deemed so crucial because it has an impact on the growth and the provision of quality educational programs. The impact of guidance and counselling in schools depends on the availability of resources, both human and physical and the support of the head teachers (Lutomia & Sikolia, 2008). This entangled with proper teacher counselor training makes guiding and counseling contributes to the great success in schools. It is therefore important for every school to have a working guidance and counselling program to be able to support the students who need assistance for their growth and discipline in schools. Parents must also be included in the program for it to function properly (Mutie & Ndambuki, 1999). This paper focuses on identifying teacher counselor and their levels of training in secondary schools in Kamariny Division of Keiyo District. The author employed a descriptive survey design targeting the teacher counselors in the selected schools. The population of the study comprised 10 teacher counselors. Purposive sampling was used to select the teacher counselors. A questionnaire was used in data collection after which the data were analyzed with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 12.5 for Windows. Data was analyzed using descriptive statistics in the form of frequencies and percentages. The findings showed that the teacher counselors are not adequately trained to counsel the students in the secondary schools. Many of them have attended only workshops and seminars on guidance and counselling. The paper therefore recommends that each secondary school in Kenya should have a well trained guidance and counselling teacher to assist the students deal with existing and emerging challenges.
Keywords: Guiding and Counselling Secondary Schools., Level, Teacher Counselors, Training