Abstract:
ABSTRACT
Following the ban of corporal punishment in Kenyan schools and the enactment of the
Children’s Act Cap 586, the Ministry of Education has been emphasizing the use of guidance
and counselling as a way of addressing the needs of children in schools. Even though some
progress has been made towards this end, many adolescent orphans learning in public secondary
schools in Upper Nyakach Division continue to exhibit behavioural problems that manifest
emotional difficulties. It is therefore imperative that lot more needs to be done in the public
secondary schools in order to tackle the emotional challenges of adolescent orphans. During this
crucial developmental stage, orphans may find it difficult to cope with the life stresses, loss of
their parents as well as their studies, thus exhibiting emotional problems. The research was
carried out to determine the influence of counselling services on emotional stability of adolescent
orphans in public secondary schools of Upper Nyakach Division in Kisumu County, Kenya.
Moreover, the study also investigated the effects of co-variates such as age and gender of the
adolescent orphans on their emotional stability. To achieve this aim, the study adopted ex-post
facto research design since the schools already had established guidance and counselling
departments which carried out the service. A total population of 2875 adolescent orphans from
22 public secondary schools whose data was available at the Divisional Education Office in
Upper Nyakach division was targeted. A sample of 338 orphans worked out using the sampling
formula given by Kathuri and Pals was studied. Data was collected using questionnaires from the
sample population. Descriptive and inferential statistics was used to analyze the data collected
using R-Script and SPSS version 22.0 computer programmes. Report findings were based on
respective p-values. The study revealed that there was a positive correlation between counselling
services and emotional stability among adolescent orphans in public secondary schools in Upper
Nyakach Division. It also revealed that there was no statistically significant gender and age
difference in emotional stability among the adolescent orphans. The study concluded that
adolescent orphans benefited from counselling services offered in public secondary schools with
most of them indicating that they were more emotionally stable after going through counselling.
The study therefore recommended that the Teachers Service Commission should appoint
teachers with expertise in guidance and counselling to provide the services in public secondary
schools and that the adolescent orphans should be encouraged to seek the counselling services.
