Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / The purpose of the study was to investigate the Namibian School Counselling Programme from the perspectives of selected stakeholders. The study focused on what the stakeholders consider to be the objectives of the Namibian School Counselling Programme, the services characteristics of the programme, the resources available in the schools for the implementation of the programme, the beneficiaries of the school counselling programme and the programme services recipients’ satisfaction. Mixed methods approach was employed for the study and both qualitative and quantitative data were collected. One hundred and forty eight (148) schools from the Ohangwena region of Namibia were involved. The study participants were two hundred and eighty eight (288) learners, one hundred and forty two (142) principals, sixty eight (68) teacher-counsellors and five (5) parents. Questionnaire and interviews (in-depth individual one-on-one semi-structured interview and focus groups discussions) were used to gather data. Quantitative data were analyzed by using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS), while qualitative data were analyzed by the use of themes and coding. The results revealed that participants endorsed all the three sets of objectives of school counselling programme, presented to them on the questionnaire, as representing those of the Namibian School Counselling Programme. Major services which the participants considered to characterize the Namibian School Counselling Programme include counselling, academic development, career planning, education and/or information dissemination, consultation and referral services. Teacher-counsellors, school principals, learners and parents were considered to be human resources for the programme which was said to have no clear or specific budget. Material resources in the forms of counselling books, job housebrochures, and some other information materials on career and health were indicated as available for the programme. However, teacher-counsellors have no counselling rooms to conduct individual counselling or therapy and that file cabinets (for the storage of learners’ cumulative records) and display boards (foreducation and career information) were only available in very few schools. Generally, participants positively perceived the counselling services provided by the Namibian School Counselling Programme as satisfactory.

The focus of this project is on the quality and relevance of Vocational Counselling programme in Nigerian schools. It analyses the discipline’s training syllabuses in Universities and the extent and manner of its application in secondary schools by graduates in the field and proffers suggestions on how to improve upon both the training and the practice. As a professional field of study, Guidance and Counselling was first introduced at the University of Ibadan, in the 1980s. Within a few years, the Universities of Benin and Lagos also commenced a programme in the discipline. However, and as I have discovered, the products of the programme have really not achieved much impacts in Nigerian secondary schools almost thirty years after it was first introduced. As at today, most secondary schools still do not have professional career counselors. Where they exist, they are not always very competent, and are not often consulted by pupils while selecting their subject combinations. In the Universities, Guidance and Counselling syllabus are found to be outdated. Two major approaches were adopted in carrying out this research. The first method is empirical and was executed through field research. I visited the Universities of Ibadan, Ife and Lagos – all in Nigeria - to conduct interviews with students and lecturers of Guidance and Counselling in the Universities. I also collected documents like manuals, handbooks and course outlines issued by personnels in the Departments. I also visited, conducted interviews with, and served questionnaires on, professional counselors in a selection of public and private secondary schools in Nigeria. At the end of the field work, the documents, questionnaires and interviews were analysed and what I identified as the strengths and weaknesses of Guidance and Counselling programmes in Nigerian Universities were laid out. The second approach adopted in this study has to do with analysis of scientific publications in the field. Books, journals, manuals and even electronic publications by Guidance and Counselling experts in Germany, Europe and other places were assembled and carefully studied. In the end, what constitutes minimum competence requirements were underlined. Applied to the data earlier collected in the field, my conclusion is that the various Guidance and Counselling programmes in Nigeria need to be improved upon II and/updated and that its importance in secondary education needs to be further stressed. To improve the programme, I suggested, among others, the need for Nigerian Universities to actively work toward the development of collaborative and exchange programmes with institutions in Europe and other parts of the world.

The focus of this project is on the quality and relevance of Vocational Counselling programme in Nigerian schools. It analyses the discipline’s training syllabuses in Universities and the extent and manner of its application in secondary schools by graduates in the field and proffers suggestions on how to improve upon both the training and the practice. As a professional field of study, Guidance and Counselling was first introduced at the University of Ibadan, in the 1980s. Within a few years, the Universities of Benin and Lagos also commenced a programme in the discipline. However, and as I have discovered, the products of the programme have really not achieved much impacts in Nigerian secondary schools almost thirty years after it was first introduced. As at today, most secondary schools still do not have professional career counselors. Where they exist, they are not always very competent, and are not often consulted by pupils while selecting their subject combinations. In the Universities, Guidance and Counselling syllabus are found to be outdated. Two major approaches were adopted in carrying out this research. The first method is empirical and was executed through field research. I visited the Universities of Ibadan, Ife and Lagos – all in Nigeria - to conduct interviews with students and lecturers of Guidance and Counselling in the Universities. I also collected documents like manuals, handbooks and course outlines issued by personnels in the Departments. I also visited, conducted interviews with, and served questionnaires on, professional counselors in a selection of public and private secondary schools in Nigeria. At the end of the field work, the documents, questionnaires and interviews were analysed and what I identified as the strengths and weaknesses of Guidance and Counselling programmes in Nigerian Universities were laid out. The second approach adopted in this study has to do with analysis of scientific publications in the field. Books, journals, manuals and even electronic publications by Guidance and Counselling experts in Germany, Europe and other places were assembled and carefully studied. In the end, what constitutes minimum competence requirements were underlined. Applied to the data earlier collected in the field, my conclusion is that the various Guidance and Counselling programmes in Nigeria need to be improved upon II and/updated and that its importance in secondary education needs to be further stressed. To improve the programme, I suggested, among others, the need for Nigerian Universities to actively work toward the development of collaborative and exchange programmes with institutions in Europe and other parts of the world.

Nowadays, namely at the beginning of the third millennium, every individual is entitled to free choice of occupation and acquisition of the means to satisfy his/her necessaries of life. Even the handicapped people have the same rights as the other citizens and they therefore have not only the right to a special (adapted, modified) conditions of work, but also to assistance in the preparation for employment. Work rehabilitation serves to this purpose. In particular the individual plan of work rehabilitation is designed for the clients {--} handicapped persons. The objective of my work was to describe the specific steps and procedures leading to integration of physically disadvantaged persons within the open labour market, in particular to describe the existing methods enabling the evaluation of the current health potential of the handicapped client as a precondition of integration on the labour market. The determination of qualitative research was the key point of the work. I focused in my work on the research in the region of Chomutov and Žatec, carried out from September 2008 till December 2008 in Chomutov. The persons involved in the project are long-term unemployed job applicants with a certain size of disability.

People all over the world do experience some kind of trauma during their lives. Some may experience more than one trauma, and some may experience more intense trauma, but sooner or later we all experience trauma. Sadly, our children are not excluded. The first aim of this study, was to investigate the influence of trauma on the lives of children in their mid childhood years. The following questions were asked: · What are the specific developmental tasks for middle childhood, regarding their physical, cognitive, affective, social, religious, moral and esthetical development? · What about trauma is so traumatic? · Are there any recognisable and predicted effects, present in children who experienced trauma? · And last, but not least, how do children understand and experience a traumatic death? The second aim of this study was to develop a trauma counselling program for children who experienced a trauma. The program had to focus on the specific needs of children in their mid childhood years. In order to do this, the following points were looked at: · What is the current understanding of trauma? Are there any counselling programs for children available, and how do they work? · There are a vast majority of intervention techniques available, the most popular techniques – playtherapy, bibliotherapy, grouptherapy, arttherapy and narrative therapy, were briefly discussed. · Finally a graphic presentation of a new trauma counselling program was included. To see whether this trauma counselling program could help children to overcome posttraumatic symptoms and prevent posttraumatic stress-disorder, it was implemented during two case studies. · The first case study was a girl that had been bitten by dogs twice. As a result of this trauma, she developed an unnatural fear of dogs. The trauma counselling program was implemented, and after a few weeks the girl was able to conquer and control her fear of dogs. · The second case study was a boy who needed to accept his father’s suicide. The trauma counselling program was adapted to suit his specific needs, and once again the program helped the boy to understand and accept his father’s suicide. The success of these two case studies, lead to the acceptance of this study’s hypothesis, namely, that if one developed a trauma counselling program that are compatible with the needs of children in their mid childhood years, it will help children to accept and overcome trauma. Therefore posttraumatic stress symptoms will be reduced and post-traumatic disorder will be prevented. / Dissertation (MEd (Learning Support, Guidance and Counselling))--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Educational Psychology / unrestricted

Career choice is one of the most daunting decisions one has to make, since it has implications that affect a variety of aspects in one’s life. For adolescents, career decision–making is even more challenging because it is done at a time when adolescents are going through a period of identity formation, and when their core personalities have not yet been fully formed. It is therefore essential to provide systematic career guidance programmes that will assist adolescents in their career development in order to empower them to make realistic career choices. The school, as a place where adolescents spend most of their time, can be used as a vehicle to promote meaningful career development amongst adolescent learners. However, the contribution by adolescents themselves in determining the appropriate content and career guidance services/activities that will best address their needs is vital. Senior secondary school learners, in particular, are in a position to articulate their career planning needs and to identify the deficits in existing career guidance programmes. The situation in Botswana where career guidance forms only a quarter of the public secondary school guidance and counselling programme, which, with all its four components, is allocated only one 40 minute–period per week deserves special attention. Hence, this study set out to determine: * the career planning needs of Senior Public Secondary School Learners in Gaborone, Botswana as articulated by the learners themselves; * the extent to which the current career guidance programme in Senior Public Secondary Schools meets the needs of the learners. A mixed methods design, consisting of the use of a questionnaire to collect the quantitative data and a qualitative method in the form of focus–group interviews, was used to collect the data for the study. The findings of the study highlight several challenges which hamper the provision of a systematic career guidance programme to the learners, which include limited time, lack of trained personnel and less than optimal career service delivery practices. The lack of key career exploration activities in schools, such as the use of internet resource materials and career video/audio tapes, job–shadowing, career field–trips/excursions and, in some cases, career talks, results in learners experiencing unmet career needs. This situation affects the extent to which the curriculum in place addresses the career planning needs of the learners. No significant differences were noted in the needs of the learners according to gender. The study reveals that the Career Guidance Programme provides the relevant theoretical frame–work for providing the necessary assistance to learners to make informed career decisions. However, the actual implementation of the programme in the different schools leaves a lot to be desired, with several learning outcomes for the career guidance programme in both Form 4 and Form 5 not being achieved. The effectiveness of the annual career fair as a major method of disseminating career information to learners also came into question since most learners expressed having gained minimal benefit from it. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.

Career choice is one of the most daunting decisions one has to make, since it has implications that affect a variety of aspects in one’s life. For adolescents, career decision–making is even more challenging because it is done at a time when adolescents are going through a period of identity formation, and when their core personalities have not yet been fully formed. It is therefore essential to provide systematic career guidance programmes that will assist adolescents in their career development in order to empower them to make realistic career choices. The school, as a place where adolescents spend most of their time, can be used as a vehicle to promote meaningful career development amongst adolescent learners. However, the contribution by adolescents themselves in determining the appropriate content and career guidance services/activities that will best address their needs is vital. Senior secondary school learners, in particular, are in a position to articulate their career planning needs and to identify the deficits in existing career guidance programmes. The situation in Botswana where career guidance forms only a quarter of the public secondary school guidance and counselling programme, which, with all its four components, is allocated only one 40 minute–period per week deserves special attention. Hence, this study set out to determine: * the career planning needs of Senior Public Secondary School Learners in Gaborone, Botswana as articulated by the learners themselves; * the extent to which the current career guidance programme in Senior Public Secondary Schools meets the needs of the learners. A mixed methods design, consisting of the use of a questionnaire to collect the quantitative data and a qualitative method in the form of focus–group interviews, was used to collect the data for the study. The findings of the study highlight several challenges which hamper the provision of a systematic career guidance programme to the learners, which include limited time, lack of trained personnel and less than optimal career service delivery practices. The lack of key career exploration activities in schools, such as the use of internet resource materials and career video/audio tapes, job–shadowing, career field–trips/excursions and, in some cases, career talks, results in learners experiencing unmet career needs. This situation affects the extent to which the curriculum in place addresses the career planning needs of the learners. No significant differences were noted in the needs of the learners according to gender. The study reveals that the Career Guidance Programme provides the relevant theoretical frame–work for providing the necessary assistance to learners to make informed career decisions. However, the actual implementation of the programme in the different schools leaves a lot to be desired, with several learning outcomes for the career guidance programme in both Form 4 and Form 5 not being achieved. The effectiveness of the annual career fair as a major method of disseminating career information to learners also came into question since most learners expressed having gained minimal benefit from it. / Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.