ADAMU TAFAWA BALEWA COLLEGE OF

EDUCATION
PMB 0316, Bauchi State
SCHOOL OF ARTS AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

DEPARTMENT OF SOCIAL STUDIES

ASSIGNMENT

On

EDU 324: GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING

PREPARED BY

S/NO NAME ADM NO

QUESTION:
EXPLAIN THE IMPORTANCE OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING TO STUDENTS IN OUR
COLLEGES

OCTOBER, 2021

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INTRODUCTION
Guidance and counseling is the process which helps the students to know their skills, interests,
personality that will help students in further career selection.
Initially, let us understand some of the concept of guidance and counseling.
Guidance is the process in which person able to know their ability, interest, a capacity that will help in
the encounter of problems faced by them. Guidance is the process of a dynamic interpersonal
relationship that is prepared to influence the person’s attitude and follow-up behavior.
According to McDonald, The objective of Guidance is to assist students and teachers in making
available desirable qualifications and skills rather than achieving the goals of educational programs.
Counseling is the sharing of thoughts, reciprocal logic and guidance between groups or two.
According to J. E. Smith, Counselling is the process in counselor has a broad discussion related to
counsellee’s interest, planning, and adjustment.
So now the question is how guidance and counseling are related to school/college going students.
Students are very much focused on academic performances but they never assess themselves because
they haven’t explored in Schools/colleges. They choose/plan their career not assessing self but with
the influence of others expertise. 
It is quite obvious that if I am an Engineer, definitely I will suggest for engineering because I have
expertise in this field only. Same is applicable for Doctor, Lawyer, designer etc. Here, students made
mistakes during the selection of streams and career. Due to this reason, self-assessment is very
important.
THE IMPORTANCE OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING TO STUDENTS IN OUR
COLLEGES
The subject of guidance and counseling has gained great importance in recent years. In many
schools well- planned efforts are made to provide assistance to individual boys and girls in
deciding upon their future careers and education, and other personal problems. Guidance and
counseling helps learners to improve their academic performance.
Guidance and counseling is important in schools and colleges in the following ways:
 Guidance and counseling helps young people to pursue the right type of education.
Whenever any learner is confused between two career options, vocational guidance can
help to make a choice. In this way, the individual is motivated.

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  Sometimes learners get confused while managing their time properly. Guidance helps
learner to organise their leisure hours.
 It assists individuals to make informed decisions about their education. Individuals have
to know the choices that are available in subjects, curricula, schools or colleges to
determine what exactly they want to pursue. They have to know subject combinations
or options, what the subject involves in the classroom, available courses and what are
the future prospects of following a particular course, available schools and colleges that
offer the desired programmes, admission requirements and educational opportunities.
 It facilitates the smooth transition for children from home to school, from primary to
secondary school, from secondary to higher educational institutions and to the world of
work. The final transition from the educational system to the labor force appears to be
most important and challenging for students.
 It helps students to cope with examination anxiety. The fear of failure and a craving for
high grades are major stress factors among students nowadays. Handling this pressure
becomes difficult for children. Guidance helps learners to overcome this fear and
achieve good marks.
 It helps students to develop effective study habits. They are guided to improve their
competence in reading, note-taking and academic achievement.

INSTANCE OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELING IMPORTANCE

Ibrahim is a good student. She does well in all subjects. The only problem is that he finds it difficult to
memorize factual information. He discussed this problem with his elder sister who felt he should follow
the mnemonics methods. He helped his to devise one mnemonic based on content from the syllabus.
Ibrahim liked it very much and found it very effective. Now he uses this method whenever he has to
remember factual information.

As given in the above scenario, guidance helped Ibrahim to find the most effective solution to her
problem.

 They can be informed about the methods of learning that suits them. They are guided on how
to use different methods for improving their academic performance.

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  It provides students with meaningful educational experiences. Students are able to correlate the
curriculum to occupations. The guide needs to give special attention to females as they often
find themselves in conflicting situations if they do not follow gender stereotypes in selecting the
subjects they study.

 Sometimes personal problems of a learner may hinder the learning process. Fights between
parents and peer pressure are some of the reasons that hamper learning. Guidance may be
provided on how to tackle these situations and concentrate on academics.

 During puberty, learners often tend to get distracted. Peers influence each other greatly at this
stage. They may get addicted to bad habits. Guidance and counseling become very important in
such situations to bring learners back on to the correct path.

CONCLUSION

Counselors will be able to provide guidance and counseling to the students for encounters all problems
related to career and update them related to current trends and developments, available streams. By
guidance and counseling, students will be able to know about themselves and easily encounter the
problems that they face in day to day life. 

This is most important for their bright and successful career. The identification of Interest, abilities,
personality will help students to recognize their strengths and that is their strong zone, easier to
sharpen. It is psychologically proven, the area, in which individuals are strong, find interest to explore
that area and easy to build their career in the same field.

So, in the current trend, guidance and counseling are very much required for school/college going
students to identify their strength, weakness and at the same time work on their strength and area of
interest to do wonders in future.

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REFERENCE

Donald Super's LIFE-SPAN, LIFE-SPACE APPROACH" (PDF). Grinnell College.

Esbroeck, R.; Athanansou, J. (2008). "1. Introduction". In Athanasou, J. & R. Van Esbroeck (ed.).
International Handbook of Career Guidance. Springer. pp. 1–19. ISBN 978-1-4020-6229-2.

McIlveen, P., & Schultheiss, D. E. (Eds.). (2012). Social constructionism in vocational psychology and
career development. Rotterdam, The Netherlands: Sense.

McMahon, M. (2017). Career counselling: Constructivist approaches (2nd ed.). Abingdon, UK:
Routledge.

Pryor, R. G. L., & Bright, J. E. (2011). The chaos theory of careers: A new perspective on working in
the twenty-first century. New York, NY: Routledge.

Schiersmann, C., Ertelt, B.-J., Katsarov, J., Mulvey, R., Reid, H, & Weber, P. (eds.) (2012). NICE
Handbook for the Academic Training of Career Guidance and Counselling Professionals.
Heidelberg: Heidelberg University, Institute of Educational Science. p. 7. ISBN 978-3-944230-
03-0.