Back to: Guidance and Counselling in Education B.ed Notes, M.A Notes, IGNOU Notes
Concept Types and Characteristics of Guidance in Education
Guidance is the organised, professional process of providing support through training, experience, and other resources. Even while it can be done by instructors, guidance is not teaching; it is a crucial component of the whole educational programme. Some people mistakenly believe that counselling and guidance are the same thing, but this is in no way the case; guidance is a phrase that is more inclusive than counselling and includes counselling as one of its services.
There is no single definition of guidance by experts and authors, it is defined differently according to the needs and differing nature of societies.
- Definition of Guidance by crow and crow, “Guidance is assistance made available by competent counsellors to an individual of any age to help him direct his own life, develop his own point of view, make his own decision, carry his own burdens,”
- According to Tolbert, Guidance is the total programme or all the activities and services engaged in by an educational institution that are primarily aimed at assisting and individual to make and carry out adequate plans and to achieve satisfactory adjustments in all aspects of his daily life.”
- According to Brewer, “the word guidance should be used whenever an important activity is, to be learnt and assistance needed by an individual to learn that activity and adjust himself, whether that activity is the choice of leisure time activity or habit of eating or behaviour towards the opposite sex.”
- According to Chisholm, “Guidance seeks to help the individual discover his own talents in comparison to the opportunities of the world and help him prepare himself so that he can find or develop a place in which he can live a well balanced life and contribute his part to the welfare of his fellow men.”
- According to Jones, “Guidance involves personal help given by someone; it is designed to assist a person in deciding where he wants to go, what he wants to do, or how he can best accomplish his purposes, it assists him in solving problems that arise in his life. It does not solve problems for the individual, but helps him to solve them. The focus of guidance is the individual, not the problem, its purpose is to promote the growth of the individual in self-direction”.
- According to Ruth Strang, “Guidance is a process of helping every individual, through his own efforts, to discover and develop his potentialities for his personal happiness and social usefulness”
Characteristics of Educational Guidance
It is a process: It is a process that enables each individual to help himself, to recognise and use his inner resources, to create objectives, make plans, and to solve his own developmental difficulties.
Guidance is a continuous process: It is a lifelong process that begins in early childhood and continues through adolescence, maturity, and even old age.
It is a service meant for everyone: Guidance is a service that is necessary at every stage of a student’s life; it is not only for smarter students, young men, or children, but for all students, young and old, brilliant and atypical.
Specialized and generalized service: Guidance is a broad service since it involves everyone, including instructors, tutors, parents, and advisers. It is a specialist service since professionally trained individuals such as counsellors, psychiatrists, and psychologists participate and assist the individual.
Types of Guidance in Education
Guidance is founded on the concept that humans are in urgent need of assistance; there are only one in a million situations where we discover that a person is self-sufficient and does not require assistance from others. Guidance is relevant to the student’s educational, social, emotional, moral, linked health, and leisure time requirements, as well as his occupational requirements. A child’s ambitions come true with the support of guidance and information, and this ultimately leads the society to new heights. The following are the two primary types of guidance:
- Educational Guidance: Educational guidance is not formal instruction but a process that supports the individual in putting himself in the best educational circumstances possible. Educational counselling should not be confused with formal education. Individual differences, different courses, a new institution or environment, and so on all necessitate educational supervision.
- Vocational Guidance: A vocational training programme is one that is targeted to a job or occupation. An individual is guided via this process toward a set of goals for career advancement or to get a specific job. It is often referred to as a future construction process.
