Impact of Effective Guidance and Counselling on Students of Cape Coast Polytechnic, Ghana.

Abstract

This paper aims to explore the impact of guidance and counselling on students’ performance and the marketability of educational institutions with reference to Cape Coast Polytechnic. Its  objectives are: to survey the present status of guidance and counselling at the polytechnic; to assess how the present status of the programme affects students’ performance and the marketability of the Polytechnic; to determine students’ desire for formal counselling; and to determine strategies to improve counselling at the polytechnic. The researcher developed questionnaires for lecturers and students for data collection.  Respondents were Marketing students and lecturers of the polytechnic. Frequencies and percentages were used to analyse data. A small-scale trial counselling session was organised for all Marketing students to see how counselling would benefit them. The studies revealed that: even though some guidance services were run at the Polytechnic, counselling is not effectively run;  factors which accounted for the ineffective counselling services included, among others, lack of monetary reward for counselling, non-existence of official counselling office, and lack of separate offices for individual lecturers; formal counselling can lead to improvement in student’s academic performance; and majority of the students desired formal counseling. Recommendations: Based on the results, some useful recommendations were made.  Prominent among them are: individual lecturers must be provided with separate offices; financial reward must be given to lecturers for counselling students; a counselling centre must be provided; and professional counsellors must be employed to man the counselling centre.

Keywords: Counseling, Guidance, Marketing, Service, Polytechnic