Int J Adv Couns 6:115 - 123 (1983) © 1983, Martinus NijhoffPublishers, The Hague. Printed in the Netherlands

T H E STATE OF COUNSELING IN NIGERIA

DANIEL I. DENGA University o f Jos

Summary African nations are in a hurry to educate citizens in order to modernize and enhance their social, economic and political development. The concept of guidance and counseling, although relatively new in Africa has been embraced by most developing nations with enormous enthusiasm. This is because counseling is being regarded by most nations as an educational service through which efficient manpower for development can be attained. Counseling practice, however, does run into frequent clashes with African traditions and development goals typical of developing countries. In order to become fully acceptable at this initial stage, the guidance and counseling profession in Africa must tolerate some compromises and modifications from its original philosophy in the Western sense.

Introduction Developing nations in Africa have fully committed themselves to a policy of social, economic and political reform. Educational systems of these countries are thus geared mostly toward enabling citizens to make reasoned decisions that will benefit both the individual and the society. The issues faced by counseling in Nigeria relate to educational and vocational decision- making and personalsocial concerns of youth and adults. The African traditions seem to permeate guidance and counseling practice in all its ramifications. The influence of local cultural traditions cannot be divorced from the counseling practice because in every society, the individual is an embodiment of both the traditional and modern ways of life. He cannot be entirely free from the influence of the traditional beliefs, folkways and customs. While one recognizes the benefit which developing nations have derived from some elements of the Western philosophy of guidance and counseling, one is at the same time cogni-

116 zant of the impact which traditional beliefs exert on the learning and decisionmaking process of idividuals in the developing nations. Uka (1966) remarks that the traditional community as the nursery of human nature transmits cultural traditions to the individual and shapes his personality. Earlier studies on counseling in Nigeria have shown that the cultural conflict between Western and African traditional values is most acute in secondary and university students who are engaged in a process of developing both an occupational and social identity (Mack, 1979; Esen, 1972). Different communities in Africa have their own ways of handling psychological problems, including those of occupational decision-making. For instance, the use of elders as authorityfigures and a source of wisdom; consultation with gods, spirits, supernatural powers including herbalists are some of the major vehicles for resolving psychological problems in Africa. Lambo (1963) for example, found out that the conflict in values and beliefs was largely responsible for the high rate of emotional distress and breakdown among Nigerian students abroad. The absence of traditional ways of counseling abroad added to the distress of Nigerian students overseas. The general approach taken in this paper is to address the state of educational, occupational and personal- social counseling in Nigeria and then to suggest the mode of counseling that would prove fully acceptable to Nigerian clients. In examining the state of counseling in Nigeria, one is not inclined to discredit the Western tenets indiscriminately, but to show how such tenets can be modified to benefit developing nations to which the Western technology is being introduced.

Historical Background and Development The concept of guidance as a formalized educational service is relatively new in Nigeria. Its history dates only from the late 1950s when a few religious Irish Sisters at Saint Theresa's College near Ibadan saw the need for vocational guidance of the graduating female students of their College in 1959. These Sisters invited some educated people from Ibadan community to come and advise the graduating female students about occupational opportunities in the community. These eminent advisors were not trained counselors, but they knew more about the emerging world of work than the students and the sisters. This group of advisors constituted themselves into a body which later developed into the former Ibadan Careers Council which formed the nucleus of what is to-day known as The Nigerian Careers Council. Cote (1972), an American USAID worker in Nigeria reports that in 1961 a booklet entitled "An Approach to Guidance in the Schools" written by C.I. Beripiki, a vocational guidance officer in the Federal Ministry of Education, Lagos was published in the same year by the Ministry of Education.

117 Formal guidance was officially introduced in 1964 when the first seminar on guidance was held in Lagos. From this period, several important activities to promote guidance followed. The Ibadan Careers Council presented a Workshop for careers masters at Ibadan in 1967. Participants were drawn all over Southern Nigeria. The 1972 conference organized by the Ibadan Careers Council drew up to 158 members (Denga, 1982) from all over Nigeria. Several guidance activities were generated at this conference in various states within the Federal Republic of Nigeria, including the use of Aptitude tests for educational placement of secondary school children into various educational programs such as the regular secondary school program, the commercial program, the technical and teacher training programs. For several states, the use of these aptitude tests served as the beginning of school guidance and counseling. The impetus behind the rapid development of guidance and counseling in Nigeria was provided by the Nigerian government in both, the Second National Development Plan (1970) and the Third National Development Plan (1972) in which a high priority was placed upon manpower development as a key to effective national economic growth. Educational and Career counseling of youth was regarded as a means of providing assistance to youth in making wise choices of educational and career programs. Provision has since then been made for the training of guidance and counseling personnel for this assistance, and educational and vocational counseling in secondary schools have been intensified. The development of counseling in Nigeria since its inception is rooted in the prevailing African philosophy that everybody is his brother's keeper. Somebody experiencing some social, psychological or financial difficulty always finds someone to depend upon. The helping person may be an elder, a priest, secular or religious father ; a herbalist, a spiritual diviner, a soothsayer and others. The concept of counseling has thus been around always. It is therefore, relatively easy for clients to come to the counselor for help if they understand who he is and what he can do for them. For example, educational and vocational decision - making in Nigeria is heavily influenced by the African traditional concept of respect for and reliance on elders (Denga, 1981:327). The Nigerian child is often full of views for authorityfigures and so comes to the counselor to seek directives from an elder (the counselor) and wiser person who ought to dictate to the youngsters what educational and occupational decisions to make. A child's choice of an educational program, occupation, or even a life-partner is often after full consultation with parents, uncles, nephews, and other significant others. The primary reason for this is that the Nigerian child is essentially other-directed and needs to sound the opinion of the elders and those who support him morally and economically before making a decision. A change is gradually being noticed as some young people are increasingly taking independent decisions about their lives.

118 The traditional philosophy and socio-cultural factors described above tend to interfere with counseling as viewed from the West where formal counseling as an educational service originated. For example, the child and the counselor may together make a rational and appropriate educational or vocational decision based on the child's psychological characteristics such as intelligence, aptitudes, interest and other personality variables. This decision may however, often clash with the aspirations of parents and other members of the child's extended family. A father who had dreams of becoming a medical doctor but who had no opportunity to fulfil his occupational dreams often dictates to the child to make sure he fulfils his father's occupational dreams. Economic conditions also influence educational and occupational counseling in Nigerian schools. In the Second National Development Plan the federal government of Nigeria stressed the need to help students choose their educational programs in secondary schools by pointing out that available resources for manpower development are too limited to allow students to select courses only on the basis of whim and caprices. The concept of freedom of choice as viewed from the Western philosophy of guidance does not come to Africa readily. The individual must be willing to sacrifice his freedom and individuality if necessary, in order to meet the needs of the family and the larger society, particularly the needs for economic survival and development. The idea of free choice will become more plausible after the Nigerian economy has attained a period of sustained economic growth. Furthermore, it has been observed that in most developing countries in Africa, manpower targets are established to coincide with national objectives for economic development. It is very difficult therefore, for the counselor as an employee of the government to thwart the national objectives by counseling students to choose their educational programs and occupations as they desire. The best compromise for counselors in developing countries perhaps is to expose students to the national manpower needs and available educational and vocational opportunities, so that students will make their choices with benefit to themselves and also to the society. The Nigerian government has recently introduced some incentives such as paying higher wages for certain priority occupations or awarding scholarships to students desiring to study certain courses that are related to the manpower needs of the country.

Settings in Which Counseling and Guidance Personnel Work Since guidance and counseling is relatively new on the educational scene in Nigeria, its practice is still restricted to schools, colleges and universities, with the exception of occasional episodes of counseling in hospitals. The hospital patients with some psychological and social problems are sometimes referred to the

119 counseling unit in certain universities in Nigeria for psychological counseling. During the past decade there has been an increasing awareness on the part of government officials of the role that guidance and counseling services can play in Nigerian secondary schools, particularly in educational placement and occupational counseling. With the implementation of Universal Primary Education (U.P.E.) and the consequent rapid increase in the size of the student population, it has become necessary for educators to devise more effective educational services to deal with the teaming population. Also, with greatly expanded secondary educational opportunities there is a need for more adequate procedures for identifying qualified candidates within the student population for educational placement. The emphasis at the secondary school level is to assist youth in making rational and appropriate educational and occupational decisions. This does not mean that personal-social counseling does not exist at the secondary school level. The Nigerian children are generally reluctant to bring their personal and social problems to the counselor. They usually feel shy and uncomfortable to delve into private and personal issues with the counselor. They need more time perhaps to become more acquainted with the counselor and his roles regarding the resolution of personal-social issues. At the college and university levels, students are more mature and more concerned about their future careers. Some of them have already made up their mind as to what educational courses or careers they want, but many of them are still groping about what courses to select and what occupations to choose. Suitable methods of assessing students' abilities, aptitudes and interest have been devised by university guidance personnel and are being utilized in order to help such groping students make appropriate and rational decisions. Some of the older students in the university have peculiar problems such as the extended family problem, problem of divorce, polygamy and the like. It is necessary to tailormake the counseling procedures in each of these settings to suit the types of clients, their needs and nature of problems they have.

The Training of Counseling and Guidance Personnel for Various Settings

Pursuant to the goals of producing counselors to assist youth in resolving educational, occupational and personal - social concerns, the Nigerian government has made provisions for the training of counselors in Nigeria's faculties and departments of education in almost all the existing universities. The bachelor's degree programs have a compulsory guidance and counseling component for all education students which is aimed at furnishing the undergraduate students with skills in guidance and counseling for secondary school students primarily. The training of manpower for guidance and counseling is somewhat slow since

120 guidance is a new idea yet trying to gain recognition from the public including teachers who are professional allies of the counselor. The recent inclusion of guidance and counseling at the National Certificate of Education (N.C.E.) level is likely to step up the production of specialized manpower for guidance and counseling.

Present and Future Trends

The practice of guidance and counseling in Nigeria is at present beset by some "teething" problems of every growing infant profession. In the first place, it still has to be given official recognition by the Nigerian public. The work and roles of the classroom teacher are familiar, but the counselor's roles are yet to be understood and appreciated. Even the teachers who are professional allies of the counselor still regard him as a rival, mainly because, by the nature of his friendly relationship with the students, he becomes very popular among them, and this further makes him an enviable staff on the school campus. Apart from the problem of recognition, guidance and counseling is faced with the inadequacy of trained personnel. It has been pointed out earlier that the government is training guidance personnel at the N.C.E. and university levels both in Nigeria and in the U.S.A. But the beginning of this training program is too recent to yield sufficient staff to cope with the need at present. Related to the problem of personnel shortage is a lack of counseling tools. The best mode of modern counseling involves the use of appraisal techniques like the use of aptitude tests, intelligence tests, personality and interest inventories to appraise the individual's potentialities for rational and appropriate counseling. Some Nigerian educationists have embarked upon devising and norm-referencing their appraisal instruments. But the validity and reliability of these instruments are yet to be established. The use of aptitude tests standardized by TEDRO, (Test and Research Development Office) a branch of the West African Examinations Council, has helped many states to start their educational placement programs. But these tests are very expensive since the Ministries of Education in the States involved in the use of the TEDRO aptitude tests have to hire personnel, tests and facilities from TEDRO in order to administer and process the results of the tests. Most counselors in Nigeria at present resort to using non-test techniques such as biographies, case materials, rating scales and anecdotes as data-gathering tools for counseling. A lack of occupational information to assist students in understanding the world of work and occupational opportunities is another problem presently inhibiting the success of guidance in Nigeria. The idea of guest speakers on various occupations, or field trips to occupational sites with students to enable them to learn more about the job market is sound. But the lack of funds tends to dampen

121 the school administrator's enthusiasm to provide for those counseling activities that will cost money. Another issue plaguing the state of counseling in Nigeria at present deals with the question of traditions. The existing counselors who are mostly trained in the Western tradition and learn the so-called Western techniques of counseling often fail to appeal to some African clients who believe more in traditional counseling than the Western type of counseling. The traditional counselors include elders, diviners, soothsayers, priests and magicians who are believed by some clients to possess supernatural powers and are thus capable of predicting and forecasting the fate of individuals. Fortune-telling is practised in other parts of the world including the U.S.A., but in Nigeria some of the clients get mixed up between superstitious beliefs, ignorance and tradition. ~/¢hen this happens, a young counselor trained in the Western mode of counseling finds it difficult to satisfy such clients. The typical counseling problems usually brought for traditional counseling include psychosomatic problems, mental distress, barrenness issues, constant headaches, failure to get promoted in one's business, how to win co-wife competition for the husband's love, how to live long and how to protect oneself from enemies. The African with external locus of control believes that personal maladjustment or abnormal behaviours are caused by external forces especially supernatural powers such as evil spirits, angry gods, witches or wizards. There is thus an endless dependency on some higher authority, be it an elder, priest, fathers, god, visible or invisible. Directive counseling should perhaps be the typical mode of traditional counseling, since clients are traditionally inclined to accept directives from the elder, priest or diviners unquestioningly. The present and future state of counseling in Nigeria must thus take cognizance of the modern and the traditional nature of the African society and its clients. It is likely that traditional counseling will gradually give way as the populace becomes more enlightened and less superstitious. It may, on the other hand, die hard in certain sections of the African continent where traditional beliefs are not even regarded as a function of the level of literacy or sophistication but an integral part of African life that must be perpetuated. In conclusion, it could be suggested that the practice of guidance and counseling in Nigeria should shuttle between the traditional and the modern if it can be accepted by most people. The educational and occupational components of counseling seem not to be affected by the traditional problems. But personalsocial counseling dips into the traditional belief system. Since the Nigerian client is a child of two worlds - the modern and the traditional, - the practice of counseling in Nigeria should combine the modern or Western type of counseling and the traditional type in order to suit the Nigerian clientele.

122 It can be argued that the Western type of counseling will prove more effective with clients who have been greatly influenced by christianity and other modern Western-oriented therapeutic approaches toward solving p e r s o n a l - social problems. Such clients can be said to have become acculturated in the Western sense. But some clients who have been influenced by Western traditions still hold tenaciously to traditional beliefs and folkways. Counseling in Nigeria should cater to these groups of clients and should also be extended to clients that have not been appreciably influenced by the Western belief system. The counseling practice in Nigeria must therefore, incorporate traditional counselors (sometimes called " h e a l e r s " ) whenever traditional-oriented clients are diagnosed. Such traditional counselors are found in almost every community in Nigeria. A m o n g the Yoruba people, such traditional counselors a n d / o r healers are called the " b a b a l a w o s " while among the H a u s a people such traditional counselors and " h e a l e r s " are called the " m a l l a m s " and the " b o r i s " respectively. It is desirable to train counselors in such a way that they can acquire as various skills as are needed by the clientele. But where a counselor lacks some definite skills, appropriate referrals should be made to members of the counseling team that should certainly include the modern as well as the traditional counselors. Such a practice will enrich counseling practice in Nigeria and bring about the needed compromise between the modern and the traditional counseling.

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123 Mack, D.E. (1979) Counseling in a Nigerian university. The Personnel and Guidance Journal, Vol. 57, No. 9. Napier, R.W. (1972) School Guidance Services: Focus on the Developing Nations. Ibadan: Evans Brothers Publishers Ltd. Uka, N. (1966) Growing up in Nigerian culture, lbadan: Institute of Education, University of Ibadan, Nigeria.