Career Guidance: Role of Counseling Resources and Community Support in Public Schools in Kenya

Challenges facing guidance and counseling directly affect career guidance services provided in the Kenyan secondary schools. Some of the challenges include: inadequate guidance and counseling resources and limited community support on guidance and counseling programmes. The purpose of the study was to examine the role of guidance and counseling resources and community support on career guidance among public secondary school students in Kakamega South Sub-county in Kenya. The objectives of the study were: examine how availability of guidance and counseling resources affects career guidance and find out the effect of community support on career guidance. The study was guided by a conceptual framework that represented the interrelationship among variables used in the study, and adopted descriptive survey research design. The sample comprised of 12 School Principals, 12 guidance and counseling teachers, 296 form four students, 36 form four parents and Quality Assurance and Standards Officer of education in the sub-county, giving a total of 357 respondents. Purposive sampling, stratified random sampling and simple random sampling techniques were employed in the study to select respondents. Data was collected using questionnaires, interview schedules and document analysis. Quantitative data was analyzed using descriptive statistics which included frequencies, percentages and graphs. Qualitative data was assessed in verbatim, then transcribed and organized into themes and sub-themes. The findings of the study showed that inadequate guidance and counseling resources and limited community support negatively affected career guidance. The study concluded that availability of guidance and counseling resources and community support directly affected provision of career guidance in schools. Recommendations of the study were that national and county governments, school principals, teachers, parents and the larger community should work together to facilitate career guidance in schools. The results and findings of the study are hoped to be significant to the Ministry of Education and all stake holders in the field of guidance and counseling in enhancing career guidance in public secondary schools in order to achieve the set educational goals.