TUTOR-COUNSELLORS’ COMPETENCY, TEACHING LOAD AND THE CHALLENGES THEY FACE IN PUBLIC TEACHER TRAINING COLLEGES IN THE RIFT VALLEY REGION OF KENYA

Guidance and counselling services that are offered in Public Teacher Training Collages are aimed at assisting students in dealing with the challenges they face each day of their lives. However, despite the implementation of these services, students still experience numerous social, academic, psychological and disciplinary challenges. This paper is based on a study whose objectives were to determine the tutor counsellors’ competency, teaching load and the challenges they face in providing guidance and counselling services in public teachers’ training colleges located in the formerly the Rift Valley Province of Kenya. The study adopted a discipline survey and targeted all the 2,658 second year students. A random sample of 335 students was selected. Ten tutor-counsellors were purposively selected and included in the sample. Data was collected using two structured questionnaires, one for the students and the other for tutor-counsellors. The data collected was analyzed using descriptive statistics with the aid of Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 11.5 for windows. The reliability coefficient of 0.76 was obtained. The majority of tutor counsellors in public teacher training colleges in Rift Valley were not competent enough to offer guidance and counselling services to students. Most tutor counsellors in the Public Teacher Training Colleges teach between 18 and 26 lessons a week. This means that they have less time to provide guidance and counselling services to students due to the teaching load and time. Guidance and counselling tutors face a number of challenges in undertaking their responsibilities in the college. These include lack of specific time allocation to guidance and counselling activities, inadequate resources and facilities and heavy workload of tutor counsellors.