Impact of Guidance and Counseling on Performance of Secondary Schools in Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State, Nigeria

Understanding the impact of guidance and counselling on performance of schools has warranted special attention over time by different fields of scientific knowledge. Following the frequent decline of school students performance and coupled with high level of students dropout, social vices, increase in immoral and cult activities, high level of unemployment, among others, effective guidance and counselling practice in schools have remained the key factor that is highly depended upon to restore performance confidence of schools and keep the society vision of building an enviable society flourishing. Guidance and counselling thus, is a requisite for survival and a gauge of how predictable the school system in any society should look. This implies that guidance and counselling has the capacity to determine school performance. Yet, little or no empirical link has been established with the guidance and counselling characteristics and performance of secondary schools. It is as against this backdrop, the purpose of this study was designed to explore the underlying assumptions by examining if any significant relationship does exist between guidance and counselling and performance of secondary schools using Awka South Local Government Area of Anambra State, Nigeria. The study employed two sets of secondary data – guidance and counselling characteristics such guidance counsellor size and qualification and secondary school performance indicators such as students enrollment size, students dropout size and school external examination performance, while teacher size served as a control variable over a period of seven (7) years, spanning from 2010 to 2016 in order to ascertain the desirability, suitability, utility or goodness of guidance and counselling to the school performance. To achieve this, the study adopted a descriptive survey research design. Population of study was 50 approved public and private secondary schools in Awka South L.G. A. of Anambra State, Nigeria; out of which, a purposive sampling technique was used to select 18 secondary schools. Secondary method of data collection was adopted coupled with the use of observation and measurement instruments, archived data were collected from Post-Primary Schools Service Commission headquarter, Awka South L.G. A. The data collected were analysed statistically in a software E – view version 9.5 using pooled effect of Ordinary Least Square (OLS) multiple regression estimates in a panel data setting in three prediction models to test the underlying assumptions. The results from the study revealed that multicollinearity did not exist within the independent variables, and at 5 per cent level of significance, guidance counsellor size has negative and insignificant impact on perceived performance of secondary schools; while guidance counsellor qualification has positive relationships in all cases of secondary school performance with significant impact on students enrollment size but weak impact on students dropout size and school external examination performance. From the findings, it was safe to conclude that guidance counsellor size does not have any significant relationship with performance of secondary schools; while despite the mixed results, it can be argued that the empirical results support the contention that guidance counsellor qualification does have significant relationship with performance of secondary schools in Awka South L.G. A. of Anambra State, thereby providing evidence to the implicit assumption that lack of guidance and counselling programmes lead to steady decrease in performance of schools. Among others, the study recommended for selection of guidance counsellors in school on the basis of qualification; also, suggested that this study should be extended to primary and tertiary education levels, among others.