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Essence of Guidance and Counselling

Written By Unknown on Thursday, 3 March 2016 | 11:28:00


A.  INTRODUCTION
Guidance was originally centered on problems related to vocations for young people. Adolescents who were not in school, had nothing to do, indulged in various activities resulted in delinquency. To reduce delinquency, an effort was made with guidance which aimed at choice of job suited to the abilities and needs of the adolescents. The chief guidance responsibility of society is towards children and youth. Guidance functions whenever choices are made and even when there is no choice, it helps the individual to understand and accept the situation. It is not only needed in crisis situations but throughout the life for personality development. Guidance which comes in just by the way as life goes is informal guidance; the guidance for achievement in our day-to-day life is incidental guidance. The specific form of guidance with a purpose is the formal guidance which helps the individual to find a solution to problem.

B.  MEANING OF GUIDANCE
Guidance is the assistance made available by qualified and trained persons to an individual of any age to help him to manage his own life activities, develop his own points of view, make his own decisions and carryon his own burdens. In the educational context, guidance means assisting students to select courses of study appropriate to their needs and interests, achieve academic excellence to the best possible extent, derive maximum benefit of the institutional resources and facilities, inculcate proper study habits, satisfactorily participate in curricular and extra curricular activities.

C.  ORIGIN OF GUIDANCE
The term 'guidance' derives its meaning from the world 'guide' which refers to a person who shows the way. A guide needs to possess intimate knowledge regarding places, ways, etc., to enlighten individuals about a new place. This guidance means 'to guide'. Even at the earliest stages of the developmental history of human civilisation, adults must have extended guidance to the young for growing in and adjusting to various developmental situations in life. Although man's physical nature and equipment have remained unchanged for centuries, the structure of society has become tremendously complex. Urban life, mobility, industrialisation, hi-tech advancements, increasing media of communication, had introduced new social-personal challenges which the young or their family adults found difficult to cope with; this state of affairs led to the origin of guidance.
In the West as well as in India, organised guidance work was performed by civic minded philanthropic persons. Frank Parsons, a volunteer worker in the Civic Services House in Boston has been recorded as the Father of Vocational Guidance in USA. Dr. Hoshang Mehta and Mr. Batliboi were the civic leaders of the guidance movement in the Parsi Panchayat Bureau of Bombay. Thus Bombay in India like Boston in the USA can be termed as the cradle of guidance movement in India.

D.  DEFINITION OF GUIDANCE
Crow and Crow define, "Guidance is the assistance made available by competent counsellors to an individual of any age to help him direct his own life, develop his own point of view, make his own decisions, carry his own burdens". According to Hamrin and Erickson, guidance is "that aspect of educational programme which is concerned especially with helping the pupil to become adjusted to his present situation and to plan his future in line with his interests, abilities and social.needs". According to Jones, "Guidance involves personal help given by some one; it is designed to assist a person to decide where he wants to go, what he wants to do or how he can best accomplish his purpose; it assists him to solve problems that arise in his life".
Guidance is a process which helps every individual to help himself, to recognise and use his own inner potentials, to set goals, to work out his own problems of development. It is a continuous process needed from childhood to old age, guidance is not separate from education but is an essential part of the total educational programme. It is broader than counselling and includes counselling as one of its services. According to Butler, the two phases of counselling are 'adjustive' and 'distributive'. In adjustive phase, the emphasis is on the social, personal and emotional problems of the individual; in the distributive phase the focus is on his educational, vocational and occupational problems. Arbuckle has described Butler's distributive phaseas guidance and adjustive phase as counselling. To Hollis and Hollis, guidance programme is based on eight principles.
1.    The dignity of the individual is supreme.
2.    Individuals differ.
3.    The primary concern of guidance is the individual in his social setting.
4.    The attitudes and personal perceptions of the individual are the bases on which he acts
5.     Individual generally acts to enhance his perceived self
6.    The individual has the innate ability to learn and can be helped to make choice that will lead to self direction consistent with social improvement
7.    The individual needs a continuous guidance process from early childhood through adulthood
8.    Each individual may at times need the information and personal assistance best given by competent professional person.

E.  DEFINITION OF COUNSELLING
Guidance, which is a relatively more comprehensive process includes counselling as its most specialised function. Counselling service forms the central part of the overall assistance given to the individual through guidance programme. Counselling is a process of enabling the individual to know himself and his present and possible future situations in order that he may make substantial contributions to the society and to solve his own problems through a face to face relationship with the counsellor. "Counselling is a learning oriented process carried out in a social environment in which the professionally competent counsellor attempts to assist the counsellee using appropriate procedures to become a happy and productive member of the society by formulating realistic and purposeful goals for total personal growth.

E.  EVALUATION OF GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING
Evaluation of guidance is the process of finding the value of guidance. It is an attempt to find out to what degree the objectives of guidance and counselling has been attained. Evidences of success such as having developed the ability to be self-sufficient in solving problems and improvement in academic achievement are some of the positive outcomes expected of guidance and counselling.
As compared to the data collection methods followed decades ago, in this twenty first century, it can easily be done by putting questionnaires on the computer screen. Even if the adolescent is hesitant to reply before the counsellor, he may feel free to provide datathrough the data collecting machine. Any number of students and anyamount of data can be collected and stored for reference with less time. Simple vocational and avocational problems can be solved by clickingthe keys. If the problem is personal and needs interpersonal communication, it can be done by one to one interview type of counselling. In colleges and urban areas, this type of computer counsellingcan be done easily but only to certain extent in schools and ruralareas.
In the first chapter, the problems of adolescent girls and other relatedtraits, need for and significance of the study were dealt into. In the second chapter, the details of guidance and counselling was given. In the foil-owing chapter, related studies pertaining to adjustment problems, guidance and counselling, self-concept, attitude towards school,involvement in studies and achievement are mentioned.


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