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Humanities
- ISSN: 2155-7993
- Journal of Modern Education Review
Role of Guidance and Counseling Strategies in the Retention of Teenage Mothers in Primary Schools in Mumias Sub-County, Kenya
Elizabeth Nanyama Mabele
(Department of Educational Psychology, Masinde Muliro University of Science and Technology, Kenya)
Abstract: The Ministry of Education in Kenya put in place the return to school policy guidelines to ensure that girls who got pregnant while in school are given a second chance to continue with studies. Guidance and Counseling was also put in place to address issues teenage mothers face while in schools. The study question was to what extent guidance and counseling teachers used various strategies to address psychological distresses girls faced in schools? The study was based on Maslow Motivational theory showing how various strategies were used by guidance and counseling teachers in the retention of teenage mothers in schools. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. Purposive sampling technique was used to select 89 schools. While saturated sampling was used to select 280 teenage mothers and one Sub-County Education Officer. Simple random sampling was used to select 24 deputy Head Teachers and 24 Guidance and Counseling Departmental Heads for the study. Questionnaires, interview schedules and document analysis guide were used to collect data. Findings revealed that, in addressing psychological distresses, use of peer counselors was the key strategy, followed by seminars and workshops on learners` performance, while the least strategy was giving proportionate assignments to learners. It was recommended to have more trained peer counselors and seminars on religious issues and train more counselors. Findings may serve as a revelation to psychological challenges faced by teenage mothers in schools and also add new knowledge to existing literature on the retention of teenage mothers in schools.
Key words: Counseling, guidance, influence, retention, teenage mother
