“Determining the Impact of School-Based Guidance and Counseling

towards an Effective Service Program”

Rationale
Although the Guidance and Counseling Act was introduced in Congress, for the purpose

of developing and enriching the Filipino family and society, however, thirteen years after the passage of

Republic Act 9258, the Professional Regulatory Board of Guidance and Counseling (PRBGC) thinks the law

has done more harm than good.

Such negative statement was triggered because of the many guidance counselors who

have been disenfranchised and removed from their jobs who were affected by the imposed professional

registration of all guidance counselors. So it left us to ask, what is the current condition of guidance and

counselling services today? Thus, this study is conducted to examine the role of guidance and counseling

in enhancing student discipline in secondary schools at present.

The study will be useful not only for the Department of Education but also to other

agencies as well as to the community leading to a much morally developed nation. Even though it only

unfolds the effectiveness of guidance and counseling to a particular institution, namely the schools, but

given that all other institutions are subject to follow requirements under R.A. 9258, the discovery of

whatever is explored after the conduct of this study will disclose the relevance of the current guidance

and counseling to our nation nowadays.

Apart from subject teaching, teachers are entrusted with many responsibilities nowadays.

Guidance and counseling are some of their major duties. In the guidance and counseling literature, these

two words generally take on different meanings. The former refers to helping students’ whole-person

development, while the latter is frequently targeted at helping students with problems. In other words,
guidance work is preventive and developmental in nature whereas counseling is more of supportive,

remedial work. (Salgong, Ngumi, & Chege, 2016)

Guidance and counseling are essential elements in discipline management of people in all

societies even the most primitive societies grew out of the necessity of guiding individual’s behavior

patterns in the interest of the group. Society itself could not function without the exercise of discipline.

Using guidance and counseling to enhance discipline must be continuously being practiced if people are

to work harmoniously for the achievement of common purpose (Salgong, Ngumi, & Chege, 2016). And

added that, students are priceless assets and most essential element in education.

Salgong, Ngumi, & Chege (2016) stated that it was absolutely necessary to direct students to

exhibit acceptable attitude and behavior within and outside the school. Student indiscipline had plagued

schools leading to series of unrest, destruction of school property, vandalism, sexual abuse, killing and

drug abuse just to mention. Same authors stated that despite the effort made by the ministry

(Department) of education, to manage indiscipline in public secondary school as evidence by

establishment of guidance and counseling department in every secondary school, Indiscipline of varied

nature continued in these schools with a new dimension. Not only, were they violent and destructive but

premeditated, planned and caused maximum harm to human life. If that scenario is anything to go by,

then indiscipline was a threat to our schools. There seemed to be lack of effective alternative strategy to

contain student indiscipline. The emotional and psychological status of many learners in the 21st century

has been vastly affected by various aspects including substance abuse, domestic poverty, teenage issues,

physical disabilities, domestic violence and early pregnancy among others such factors. The consequences

of this distress are dire and far-reaching. Various strategies have been enacted by the education sector in

an attempt to address issues that affect students. On top of these strategies featured the strengthening

guidance and counseling services in schools. Despite these efforts, indiscipline in schools is still on the
increase (Wambui, 2015). Surely, discipline problems is the most serious concern of schools not only in

the Philippines, but across the globe.

Although many related studies were already done, the fact that the current condition of guidance

and counseling services in the country is not yet disclosed, the researchers would like to study the role of

guidance and counseling in enhancing student discipline in secondary schools at present.

 Statement of the Problem

Student laziness, poverty, student absenteeism, students who are disrespectful to teachers, and

student tardiness, are serious school problems. Behaviors and attitudes of students were more likely to

be seen as problematic by teachers, in general. All of those are problems that need interventions, and

that disregarding the importance of guidance and counseling in schools will lead to chaos.

At first glance, it may seem that guidance counseling is just a mere part of an organization chart,

but, this initial perception fails to take into account the relevance of such function in maintaining schools

professional attitude that may affect the flow of service that an institution should provide.

If we continue to believe, that the guidance and counseling is nothing but a useless form of

function or method, we’ll never understand the larger questions dealing about:

1. Is guidance and counseling effective in maintaining professional attitude?

2. Does guidance and counseling leads an effective service program?

3. Does inefficient guidance and counseling makes a service program weak?

4. Is guidance and counseling and service program correlated?

References
Salgong, V. K., Ngumi, O., & Chege, K. (2016). Retrieved from https://eric.ed.gov:
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ1102862.pdf

Wambui, A. (2015). Retrieved from

https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/8d65/7c76d4fd8fd0c393dbc5df244a125c9e9ce9.pdf