Efficacy of Guidance and Counselling Programme in the Paramilitary Establishment among National Youth Service Trainees and Trainers in Gilgil Training College, Kenya

Abstract

The National Youth Service (NYS) is a department in the Ministry of Public Service, Youth and Gender Affairs entrusted with the responsibility of offering vocational training to the youth. The Basic Paramilitary Training Programme exposes recruits to psycho-social problems hence the need for guidance and counselling services. Trainees and trainers’ attitude of guidance and counselling programme determines its effectiveness in the paramilitary establishment. The purpose of this study was to determine the trainees and trainers’ attitude on the effectiveness of guidance and counselling programme in the paramilitary establishment in Gilgil training college, Kenya. The study used the ex post facto research design. The target population was all NYS trainees and trainers. The college had a population of 242 paramilitary trainers and 2473 trainees. A sample of 24 paramilitary trainers and 252 trainees were selected through stratified and simple random sampling procedures. The required data were collected through questionnaires. The questionnaires were administered to the respondents after being pilot tested for reliability and yielded a reliability index of 0.83 for paramilitary trainers’ questionnaire and 0.90 for trainees’ questionnaire. The questionnaires were also subjected to scrutiny by the researchers to establish their validity. Descriptive statistics included percentages, means and frequencies which were used to analyse the data on trainees and trainers’ attitude of the guidance and counselling programme. Inferential statistics included t-test and Pearson coefficient test used to test the hypotheses of the study. The posited hypotheses were tested at 0.05 alpha level of significance. The findings of the study revealed that the guidance and counselling programme was perceived positively by all NYS stakeholders. The study thus recommended that there was need to offer more appropriate training to officer counsellors and provide the necessary adequate resources for effective service delivery. Keywords: Basic paramilitary training programme, guidance and counselling, National Youth Service, trainees, trainers