Guidance and Counseling Services at Olongapo City National High School: Basis for Enhancement Program / Navarro, Josefina P.

The guidance and counseling services are designed to promote, buck-up and facilitate academic, personal, social, and career development of the school, building a foundation for academic cognitive excellence, affective behavioral adjustment, psycho motor development through support, interventions and positive influences upon the lives of the learners in healthy relationships among the school's stakeholders. It necessitates an assessment of guidance and counseling services in order to shed light and come up with valid recommended basis for enhancement program. It is in this rationale that the guidance and counseling services at Olongapo City National High School was reviewed and assessed as basis for enhancement program, and come up with valid recommendations as basis for enhancement program. The general problem of the study is to find out what enhancement program may be proposed to improve the delivery of guidance services for SY 2014-2015. The Guidance and Counseling Services were assessed by the students and guidance counselors and teachers in terms of: information, individual inventory, counseling, consultation, research, evaluation and follow-up, placement and public relations. The study used a descriptive type of research design since the study attempted to describe, measure and analyze data to find out the association between various variables. It specifically assessed the person related and school related factors and its relationship with guidance services implementation. The study was conducted among the students, teachers and guidance counselors of Olongapo City National High School during the Academic Year 20014-2015. The respondents were computed using the Calmorin's vii (2011) formula in determining sample size. As reflected in table 1 based on the computed sample size of the respondents, 100 students who availed the guidance and counseling services for the current year 2014-2015 were chosen to answer the questionnaire. Moreover, all the guidance counselors and teacher adviser comprised the 70 respondents for this category. Findings of the study revealed that the average age of the student-respondents is 13.36, mostly female, are classified as middle class. The average age of the teacher respondents is 45.29 years old, mostly females, occupying guidance counselor, guidance coordinator, teacher and master teacher positions. The highest educational attainment of the respondents is doctorate degree and the lowest is baccalaureate or college courses. Others have shown interest in pursuing further education with some units earned in doctoral or masteral studies. The respondents are clearly eligible based on the licensure and board exams they undertook. The overall average of years in the current positions of the teachers/counselors is 21.6 years On the Guidance and Counseling Services as assessed by Students and Teachers/Guidance Counselors. The general perspective of the respondents both teachers/counselors and students is that indicators in all guidance counseling services met performance expectation except for one indicator in Counseling, Item 4 on 'plans group counseling session for individuals with similar needs', and Items 2-5 in Public Relations with a rating equivalent to 'Needs Improvement of Performance.' On organizational related factors, respondents considered it to be 'extremely and very adequate' except for two items on facilities that earned a descriptive rating of 'moderately adequate'. viii The following recommendations are offered: Training needs assessment (TNA) of guidance counselors, coordinators and teachers must be conducted to identify the inventory of skills needs relative to guidance and counseling services provided by the teacher-respondents; continuous professional development programs and capability building activities must be given to guidance counselors and teachers based on the results of TNA; partnerships with parents and other stakeholders must be strengthened to mobilize potential partners who will provide the support in terms of facilities and materials for guidance program and services; and hold a strategic planning activity to all teachers and counselors who are involved in the guidance program of the school to prepare and plan a comprehensive school guidance and counseling development program to serve as the blueprint in achieving the purposes and principles of guidance and counseling services and programs.