TABLE OF CONTENTS

Definition of Counseling ......................................................................................................... 1

Counseling in Africa ................................................................................................................ 4

Forms of Counseling in Traditional African Societies ............................................................ 5

Counseling in East Africa ........................................................................................................ 6

Counseling Practices in Tanzania ............................................................................................ 6

Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 7

REFERENCES ........................................................................................................................ 8

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Definition of Counseling
Counseling is an art and science. It’s a short term, interpersonal, theory based, helping
profession. Its aim is to resolve developmental and situational difficulties. Counseling helps to
bring change in life (Kabir, 2017). Counseling is a concept that has existed for a long time. We
have sought through the ages to understand ourselves, offer counsel and develop our potential,
become aware of opportunities and, in general, help ourselves in ways associated with formal
guidance practice.
Therefore, Counseling, in different forms and with different interpretations, has existed in
societies for a long time. Counseling has now become institutionalized. Schools, for example,
have to a large extent taken over the task of providing psychological support to boys and girls.
This makes counseling a professional relationship that empowers diverse individuals, families,
and groups to accomplish mental health, wellness, education, and career goals.

The history of school counseling formally started at the turn of the twentieth century, although a
case can be made for tracing the foundations of counseling principles to ancient Greece and
Rome with the philosophical teachings of Plato and Aristotle who argue that some of the
techniques and skills of modern-day guidance counselors were practiced by Catholic priests in
the Middle Ages, as can be seen by the dedication to the concept of confidentiality within the
confessional. Near the end of the sixteenth century, one of the first texts about career options
appeared: The Universal Plaza of All the Professions of the World, (1626) written by Tomaso
Garzoni. Nevertheless, formal guidance programs using specialized textbooks did not start until
the turn of the twentieth century (Isaacs, 1998).

Therefore to elaborate clearly the concrete history of counseling in the context of Tanzania needs
one to have a trend on counseling from the perspective of United States of America, Africa, East
Africa and Tanzania in particular. Thus the following is the elaboration on the history of
counseling.

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Counseling in the United States of America

The factors leading to the development of counseling in the United States began in the 1890s
with the social reform movement (Faust, 1968). The difficulties of people living in urban slums
and the widespread use of child labor outraged many. One of the consequences was the
compulsory education movement and shortly thereafter the vocational guidance movement,
which, in its early days, was concerned with guiding people into the workforce to become
productive members of society. The social and political reformer Frank Parsons is often credited
with being the father of the vocational guidance movement. His work with the Civic Service
House led to the development of the Boston Vocation Bureau. In 1909 the Boston Vocation
Bureau helped outline a system of vocational guidance in the Boston public schools (Faust,
1968).

The United States' entry into World War I brought the need for assessment of large groups of
draftees, in large part to select appropriate people for leadership positions. These early
psychological assessments performed on large groups of people were quickly identified as being
valuable tools to be used in the educational system, thus beginning the standardized testing
movement that in the early twenty-first century is still a strong aspect of U.S. public education.
At the same time, vocational guidance was spreading throughout the country, so that by 1918
more than 900 high schools had some type of vocational guidance system. In 1913 the National
Vocational Guidance Association was formed and helped legitimize and increase the number of
guidance counselors. Early vocational guidance counselors were often teachers appointed to
assume the extra duties of the position in addition to their regular teaching responsibilities
(Mallet, P, and Party, B. (1999).

The 1920s and 1930s saw an expansion of counseling roles beyond working only with vocational
concerns. Social, personal, and educational aspects of a student's life also needed attention. The
Great Depression of the 1930s led to the restriction of funds for counseling programs. Not until
1938, after a recommendation from a presidential committee and the passage of the George Dean
Act, which provided funds directly for the purposes of vocational guidance counseling, did
guidance counselors start to see an increase in support for their work.

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After World War II a strong trend away from testing appeared. One of the main persons
indirectly responsible for this shift was the American psychologist Carl Rogers. Many in the
counseling field adopted his emphasis on "nondirective" (later called "client-centered")
counseling. Rogers published Counseling and Psychotherapy in 1942 and Client-Centered
Therapy in 1951. These two works defined a new counseling theory in complete contrast to
previous theories in psychology and counseling. This new theory minimized counselor advice-
giving and stressed the creation of conditions that left the client more in control of the counseling
content.

In 1958 the National Defense Education Act (NDEA) was enacted, providing aid to education in
the United States at all levels, public and private. Instituted primarily to stimulate the
advancement of education in science, mathematics, and modern foreign languages, NDEA also
provided aid in other areas, including technical education, area studies, geography, English as a
second language, counseling and guidance, school libraries, and educational media centers.
Further support for school counseling was spurred by the Soviet Union's launching of Sputnik
and fears that other countries were outperforming the United States in the fields of mathematics
and science. Hence, by providing appropriate funding for education, including guidance and
counseling, it was thought that more students would find their way into the sciences.
Additionally, in the 1950s the American School Counselor Association (ASCA) was formed,
furthering the professional identity of the school counselor.

The work of C. Gilbert Wrenn, including his 1962 book The Counselor in a Changing World,
brought to light the need for more cultural sensitivity on the part of school counselors. The 1960s
also brought many more counseling theories to the field, including Frederick Perl's gestalt
therapy, William Glasser's reality therapy, Abraham Maslow and Rollo May's existential
approach, and John Krumboltz's behavioral counseling approach. It was during this time that
legislative support and an amendment to the NDEA provided funds for training and hiring school
counselors with an elementary emphasis.

In the 1970s the school counselor was beginning to be defined as part of a larger program, as
opposed to being the entire program. There was an emphasis on accountability of services
provided by school counselors and the benefits that could be obtained with structured

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evaluations. This decade also gave rise to the special education movement. The educational and
counseling needs of students with disabilities were addressed with the passage of the Education
for All Handicapped Children Act in 1975.

The 1980s saw the development of training standards and criteria for school counseling. This
was also a time of more intense evaluation of education as whole and counseling programs in
particular. In order for schools to provide adequate educational opportunities for individuals with
disabilities, school counselors were trained to adapt the educational environment to student
needs. The duties and roles of many counselors began to change considerably. Counselors started
finding themselves as gatekeepers to Individualized Education Programs (IEP) and Student
Study Teams (SST) as well as consultants to special education teachers, especially after passage
of the Americans with Disabilities Act in 1990.

The development of national educational standards and the school reform movement of the
1990s ignored school counseling as an integral part of a student's educational development. The
ASCA compensated partially with the development of national standards for school counseling
programs. These standards clearly defined the roles and responsibilities of school counseling
programs and showed the necessity of school counseling for the overall educational development
of every student. This was later extended by the will of pre colonial superpowers that showed up
the potential of counseling in their former colonies found in Africa.

Counseling in Africa

Most sub-Saharan African societies have, in the past, been held together by elements unique to
the region. The most outstanding of these elements are: the extended family system, including
the clan and the tribe, chieftaincy, taboos, various forms of initiation; and close links with
ancestors and elders (Rogers, 1942).

The village is the focal point of society. While each one of these elements is important, only a
few are used to illustrate the role of counseling in present-day sub-Saharan African societies.
Basically, traditional chiefs had multiple roles which included serving as a symbol of authority
and as a regulator. Since these roles were accepted and respected by all, there was a clear
direction in the day-to-day affairs of society (Rogers, 1942). The elders, the chief included, were a

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valuable source of guidance and counseling for boys and girls. In most cases, the chiefs were
regarded as a vital link between ancestors and the present generation. This link was strengthened
by the rituals, ceremonies and taboos attached to them. It was easy to guide and counsel the
young, since the rituals or ceremonies were also aimed at preparation for adult roles in society.
The extended family, the clan, and the village, made society supportive. No individual regarded
him/herself as alien. Counsel was readily sought and provided.

Forms of Counseling in Traditional African Societies

In traditional African societies, counsel was given in various forms, the most common of which
were giving advice and sharing wisdom. 1. Giving Advice giving advice has been a common
way of providing help for other people. The advice offered was frequently instrumental in
helping people to consider their future. In many instances, the extended family was the main
source of advice for girls and boys. There was usually no shortage of people willing to share
their wisdom with others. Giving advice often promoted the dependence of the young person on
the advice given. In most cases, it was largely subjective and did not promote the personal
development of young people (Brewer, 1918).).

Wisdom generally refers to experience and knowledge about life and using them judiciously. In
African societies, it was considered the responsibility of elders to provide wisdom or counsel to
young boys and girls. The wisdom provided by elderly men and women was part of the
counseling function of the family or society for boys and girls. Another aspect of wisdom is
sharing proverbs or folk stories. A well-known African proverb is, ‘When elephants fight, the
grass suffers.’ Folk stories about the ‘hare’ are told in many parts of Africa ( Njoka, 2007).

All these element of counseling were developed in educational field to help student get exposed
to the counseling service.

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For instance there were, Counseling in the Africa Educational System coupled with social
problems like HIV/AIDS and the rapid development of science and technology which placed
heavy demands on education. According to Dogan, (1999) the school, as an important social
institution, is required to adapt quickly to changing patterns, and help prepare citizens for
tomorrow's challenges. Counseling in the educational system should help boys and girls alike, to
develop their capacities to the full.

Counseling in East Africa

In East Africa, consideration of counseling service can be explained by regarding the case of
Kenya as the representative case study of this project work. Guidance and counseling in Kenya is
a relatively new profession. Formal guidance and counseling in Kenyan schools was officially
recognized in 1970. The Ministry of Education (MOE) established a Guidance and Counseling
Unit under its inspectorate division (Njoka, 2007).
The call for the establishment of guidance and counseling in Kenyan schools was renewed with
more vigor in the 1980s and 1990s after the country witnessed the worst arson cases ever to be
committed in the schools (Njoka, 2007) Most notably, in 1999, 17 girls were killed and 70 others
raped in a co-ed boarding school.

Counseling Practices in Tanzania

The rise of counseling service in Tanzania was associated with the rise in the Tanzania growing
complexity of society which was coupled with social troubles like HIV/AIDS in some parts of
Bukoba and the rapid development of technological know-how and era, area heavy needs on
training. The schools, as a critical social group, become required to conform quickly to
converting patterns and assist prepare residents for the following day’s demanding situations.
That is in which guidance and counseling within the academic machine should assist boys and
girls alike, to increase their capacities to the full. These consist of intellectual, social, bodily and
ethical capacities. This help is of the maximum essential in Tanzania so long as the records and
age of schooling provision and in its structures discovered these days (Bemark, 2000).

Counseling practices development in Tanzanian colleges can be traced back from the time
when vocational education changed into emerging right on the colonial length. In the technique
of establishing counseling offerings in Tanzania, there was a want to first understand the

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underlying elements that affect human beings’ ideals and perceptions about such practices.
However, that is concept that was no longer taken in to attention at the time and it may be up to
latest time.

It is mainly crucial to recognize the financial, socio-political, religious ideals, customs and
traditions, and cultural adjustments which are present in distinct regions of the united republic of
Tanzania shaped the ongoing counseling service. During colonial duration there were some
shape of vocational steerage beneath the career steering and it turned into administered by using
profession masters. But the career masters who have been selected via the top of schools had no
expert training in vocational steerage. In reality the responsibility become restricted to assisting
students fill out employment forms and writing letters of application. In the missionary faculties
vocational guidance changed into restricted to no secular offerings. The teachers who were
typically ‘fathers’, pastors, or reverends guided and skilled spiritually inclined youths to turn out
to be sisters, brothers, fathers and pastors upon their of completion of formal schooling.

Conclusion

Generally, the counseling profession developed in many ways from responses to changes in
society. In the early 20th century, when counseling was first emerging, humanistic reform, with
an increased emphasis on the value of all human beings, was also emerging. Human qualities
such as choice, creativity, self-realization, and ultimately the value of all people became the
focus of human change and intervention. During this period of humanistic reform, society saw
changes in conditions of prisons, asylums, and factories based on the humanistic principles noted
above. The focus was toward treating all clients, regardless of circumstance, in a way that
regarded and supported their potential for success and remediation. Concurrently, the school
system was taking a lead in this transformation through its focus on humanistic education,
including student-centered learning with the teacher as a facilitator, development of the self-
actualized student, and student cooperation. Humanistic reform led to a new way of viewing the
individual and the facilitation of human well-being

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