HISTORY AND BACKGROUND OF COUNSELING

Guidance and counseling is a professional discipline concerned with providing assistive

Historically, the guidance and counseling has informally existed in almost any part of the world
were civilization existed. The counseling and guidance principles began in ancient Greece and
Rome with the philosophical teachings of Plato and Aristotle. When the religious organization,
especially Christianity, began to grow in the Middle Ages, guidance and counseling began to be
practiced by religious leaders. For instance the Catholic priests in Catholic covet and churches
practiced the modern-day counseling techniques which were mostly based on their individual
confession doctrine. Another trace of the beginning of Guidance and counseling is noted from
the scholarly works of Tomas Garzoni who in 1626 wrote a book called “Universal Plaza of all
the Professions in the World” in which was a text about career options (Omoni, 2009). This book
related to what a school counselor in secondary school and colleges would talk to students about
today.

During the 19th century, the industrial revolution became the major event that began to trigger
factors that led to the development of guidance and counseling. It led to development of Social
reform movements, compulsory education movements and vocational movements in
industrialized societies like the United States of America. UNESCO (2002) noted that the first
systematic guidance service was first practiced in the United States of America in the 19th
Century by George Merrill at California School of Mechanical Arts in San Francisco, California.
George explained to the learners the contents of each trade so that they could use that
information to choose a specific vocation or career path. This was followed by counseling for job
placements and a follow up service for the graduates.

During the early 20th century,  Makinde (1983) points out that the formal genesis of the
discipline of Guidance and Counseling began in the United States of America during the early
Vocational Guidance Movement. Jesse  Davis between 1907 to 1913 began his work on
guidance and influenced schools to have school programs on personality, culture and character
development and also promoted vocational information which was related to the regular
curriculum subjects. He was the first to introduce educational guidance services to the school
system. He is therefore considered as the first School counselor in the United States. Guidance
and Counseling in form of vocational guidance was pioneered by a social and political reformer,
Frank Parsons. Specifically, in 1908 Frank Parsons, founded a Vocational Bureau in Boston.
Thus, Frank Parsons is often known as the ‘Father of Vocational Guidance’.
Parsons concern and belief was that if individuals can understand their strengths and weaknesses,
such knowledge can be used to choose vocational opportunities. This pioneering effort played a
great role in the evolution of modern Guidance and Counseling. The vocational guidance
movement was an attempt to reduce problems of unemployment, want and poverty among
underprivileged Americans.  In 1909 the Boston Vocation Bureau helped outline a system of
vocational guidance in the Boston public schools. The work of the bureau influenced the need for
and the use of vocational guidance both in the United States and other countries. In support of
this, Shertzer and Stone (1976) also asserts that this experiments started by Parsons yielded
positive results in that many youngsters benefited tremendously from the services rendered by
the bureau.

Other pioneers in the advancement of counseling associated with the vocational guidance
movement are Meyer Bloomfield, who succeeded Parsons as director of Boston’s Vocational
Guidance Bureau. In 1910, Meyer Bloomfield single handedly promoted the first National
Conference on vocational guidance in the United States of America. While other pioneers like
Eli Weaver, on the other hand, promoted the Second National Conference on vocational
guidance in 1912. By 1918 there were documented accounts of the bureau's influence as far away
as Uruguay and China. Guidance and counseling in these early years were considered to be
mostly vocational in nature, but as the profession advanced other personal concerns became part
of the programs. For instance, in 1937, the National Association for College Admission
Counseling was founded; who’s programmed emphasized personal, social, moral development.
In other countries like the United Kingdom, Hugo Munsterberg at Harvard University also
pioneered the development of career guidance in industry with the publication of his text titled
“Psychology and Industrial Efficiency”.

Another major factor in the evolution of guidance and counseling in the United States is the
enactment of series of Pro-Counseling and Pro- Education Legislative Acts. The great economic
depression as well as expansion of government activities during the new deal era greatly
increased public funding for guidance programs. Social upheavals,  which accompanied great
depression and other crisis, forced the American government to enact serious of pro-education
and pro-counseling legislations. Of all the legislation, the National Defense Education Act of
1958 more than any piece of legislature promoted the growth of guidance and counseling in the
United States. When the soviet launched the world’s first satellite in 1957, the Americans were
worried that Soviet Union had surpassed them in space technology. With typical competitive
spirit peculiar to America’s civilization, the United States space industry took up the soviet’s
challenge. As part of their effort to achieve parity with the soviet in space technology, the
Americans decided to overhaul the educational system. In order to achieve this goal, American’s
legislators decided that career counseling should be provided in all American Schools. That was
the basic goal of the passage of the National Defense Act of 1958. This legislation made massive
funds available to Colleges and Universities for training guidance counselors for American
Schools. Ever since that time, guidance and counseling in the United States had been developing
rather phenomenally.
Now, having examined the evolution of guidance and counseling in the United States, it is
necessary to examine the development of guidance and counseling in Zambia. Counseling in
Zambia in different forms and with different interpretations, has existed in societies for a long
time before colonial era. The differences and contradictions in present-day, have their origin in
the social and historical forces that have shaped modern culture. In Zambia people in all
traditional societies, and at all times, have experienced emotional or psychological distress and
behavioral problems. Young people needed to be guided into the occupations of the traditional
societies that met the expected needs and goals of society. In each culture, there have been well
established ways and methods of helping individuals with their problems and occupations. From
the scholarly work of Snelson (1978), guidance and counseling was traditionally provided to
young people during social and moral orientation, apprenticeship training and initiation
ceremonies.

During the colonial period in which missionary education was dominant, it is obvious that
guidance and counseling was provided by Christian missionaries to African pupils and native
teachers in missionary schools. For instance, Snelson (1978) points out that between 1914 to
1918, there was a problem in which the colonial company (BSACo) indirectly urged the
missionaries to discipline native teachers who were younger and were involved in sexual
problems involving African girls and other people’s wives.

After Independence in 1964, the new government began to embark on several education reforms
that changed the Zambian education system. Counseling was formally offered in the Ministry of
Health to patients especially in mental disorder, psychiatric and psychological services.
However, educationally, it was until the 1992 ‘Focus on Learning’ educational policies that
guidance and counseling began to be recognized in the Zambian education system. Guidance and
counseling services were adopted in 1992 by Ministry of Education with the view to improve
academic performance of learners and curb juvenile delinquency in schools (MoE, 1992).
Mulemwa (2015) points out that in 2002 a circular to help revitalize guidance and counseling in
schools was written by Ministry of Education and later in 2003 an association called National
Guidance and Counseling Association of Zambia (NAGCAZ) was formed. The mandate of
NAGCAZ was to enhance professionalism among guidance and counseling teachers in the
country.

Since the establishment of the NAGCAZ, guidance and counseling has been developed into a
profession in Zambia in which vocational programs have been introduced in tertiary institutions
to train professional counselors. The professional counselors are deployed in community centers,
health institutions and learning institutions. For instance, a study by Kasonde-Ngandu, Ndhlovu
and Phiri (2009) regarding the status of guidance and counseling services in schools revealed
that, out of 858 learners who participated in the study, 628 (73.2%) indicated that guidance and
counseling services were available in their schools. Similarly, out of the 52 teachers who
participated in the study, 39 (75%) of them indicated that guidance and counseling services were
available in their schools. Textbooks have also been published by the Ministry of Education that
provides information and guidelines for guidance and counseling in learning institutions.

In summary, the formal genesis of guidance and counseling evidently began in the United States
of America by the works of Jesse Davis and Frank Parsons. From the United States, it was
extended to other industrialized nations like the Great Britain and eventually in Africa. While
Zambia has made tremendous advances in the last two decades. There is still room for the
development of the profession. In particular, the performance, progression and career choices for
learners with special educational needs (LSEN) still seems to leave much to be desired
REFERENCES
Kasonde-Ng’andu, S., Ndhlovu, D. & Phiri, J. T. (2009). Impact of Guidance and Counseling
Services on High School Pupils in Zambia. Lusaka: University of Zambia press. Retrieved on
12th November, 2019 from: 

Makinde, O. (1983). Fundamental of Guidance and Counseling. London; Macmillan.

Mulemwa, M. B. (2015). An Assessment Of The Efficacy Of School Guidance And

Omoni, G. E. (Ed) (2009). An overview of Guidance and counseling in Delta State. Lagos:
Ibadan Claverianum Press

Shertzer, B. & Stone, S. C. (1976). Fundamentals of Guidance and counseling. Boston

Snelson, P. (1978). Educational Development in Northern Rhodesia from 1895-