ABSTRACT

This study determined the counselling needs of minor seminarians and in-school adolescents in South east, Nigeria. The study adopted a descriptive survey research design. A sample of 773 SSII adolescents consisting of 165 minor seminarian and 608 in-school adolescents selected from a population of 15,450 minor seminarians and in-school adolescents in the South east Nigeria. Seven research questions and seven corresponding null hypotheses guided the study. The sample which represents 5% of the population was selected using multi-staged sampling procedure.  The instrument for data collection was a 51-item researcher-developed Questionnaire titled: Counselling Needs of Minor seminarian and in-school adolescent. Questionnaire (CNSSSAQ). The instrument was validated by three experts: one each from Guidance and counselling, Psychology and Measurement and Evaluation all in Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike. The stability of the instrument was determined using Pearson product moment correlation with a coefficient of 0.84 while the internal consistency reliability was determined using Cronbach Alpha statistic with an overall reliability index of 0.82. Five briefed research assistants helped the researcher in data collection. Out of the 773 copies of the questionnaire administered, 754 copies were returned representing 98 percent return rate and were used for data analysis. Mean and standard deviation were used to answer the research questions while t-test statistic was used to test the null hypotheses that guided the study at 0.05 level of significance. The results showed that the educational counselling needs of minor seminarians and in-school adolescents in the South East Nigeria are almost the same and their needs include to: build confidence in the class and to improve their academic performance while their vocational counselling needs include to guide them on the type of career/vocation to venture into as well as on how to be self-employed after school; their social personal needs includes how to deal with peer groups, parental autonomy and interpersonal relationship while among their health counselling needs are drug abuse, sexual deviation, interhealth issue, how to deal with infectious diseases such as HIV and AIDS, among other findings. It was also found out that students in rural areas have more counselling needs than their counterpart in urban areas.  Based on the findings, conclusion, discussion and recommendations were made. One of the recommendations was that Guidance-counsellors should be posted to all seminary and secondary schools for the provision of counselling needs of the students, irrespective of their school location.