ISSUES IN SCHOOL COUNSELING IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES: AN EXPLORATION FOR EFFECTIVE DELIVERY AND DEVELOPMENT

School is a complex social institution that operates within a wider socio-cultural and political context with a lot of functions. It is the centre for acquiring education which is widely regarded as the route to economic prosperity, the key to scientific and technological advancement to combat unemployment, the foundation of social equality, and the spread of political socialization and cultural vitality. It also prepares individual to attain desired level of education as it opens up individual opportunities to attain economic power and independence. For school to perform such important functions effectively, a lot of inputs from various angles within the system are required. Teacher is the key factor in the teaching-learning process but operates under pathetic conditions in the developing nations and is compel to discharge the duty of other professionals especially, school counselor. Teacher is necessary in the school but not sufficient enough to deliver all what is expected of students, he need to collaborate with the essential services of providers to make his functions very effective. On the otherhand, school counselors are relegated to mere supporting staff to teachers and administrators while in the extreme, they are still struggling for identity. The combine effects of these actions led to the lost of substantial number of school products annually, since they lack the qualities required to further education and also lack the skills to be employed. Other effects include low quality of education, lack of students’ academic focus, misappropriations of human potentials, high number of school dropouts, and students’ psychological incompetences among others. Therefore, the objective of the paper is to examine the relevance of school counseling to the school system as a key to human and national development; and to explore options for effective delivery.