The role of religious education in guidance and counseling; a study of selected schools in Eldoret East district of uasin Gishu County

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of Religious education in molding the behaviour of secondary schools students, the role that it plays in guidance and counseling and improving students‘ academic performance after elimination of social education and ethics subject in schools. The objectives of this study were to; find out the method RE teachers use to guide and counsel students in Religious way, investigate guidance and counseling skills that teachers use in teaching RE, to establish the importance of RE in molding of individual students‘ moral behaviour through guidance and counseling and to establish the extent to which RE plays as role of guidance and counseling in secondary schools. This study was descriptive survey of Eldoret East District. Respondents were selected purposively from, 20 schools (51%) were targeted. This yielded a sample population of 360 respondents. The schools were selected through stratified simple random sampling technique. The data was collected through questionnaires and interview schedules and analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively with the help of statistic package for social science (SPSS). The data was presented in tables, graphs, frequency tables. The study is significant since it established the importance of teaching Religious Education in secondary schools and how it can be used to mould students‘ behaviour by guiding and counseling. The study ca enlighten the school teachers, school sponsors, government, Kenya Institute of Education (KIE), the ministry of education through the department of quality assurance on the benefits of teaching and learning of Religious Education in secondary schools. The findings of the study recommends that; there should be teaching of all religions in Kenyan secondary schools, RE should be revised to meet the needs of the learners, there should be provision of enough materials needed for the teaching and learning of RE in secondary schools and that RE should be given adequate lessons in secondary schools.