The Significant Aspects of Effective Guidance and Counselling that Promote Excellent Academic Achievement in rural Secondary schools of Vhembe district, South Africa

Objective: Guidance & counselling is an enterprise used globally and in SA as a strategy to promote excellent academic performance of learners. Nevertheless, its effectiveness is not given enough attention regardless that some schools continue to underperform below the national set standards of perfomance. The purpose of this project study was to investigate, ‘The significant aspects of effective guidance and counselling that promote excellent academic achievement in rural Secondary Schools of Vhembe District, South Africa. Theoretical Framework: This study was informed by the role of the teacher as a leader. According to Ma and Marion (2021) the teacher promotes academic achievement in South African rural schools. The guidance and counselling teacher in this role is seen as the catalyst for change, a visionary who is not content with the status quo and always looking for a better way of doing things. Guidance and counselling teachers serve the purpose of exposing different learning opportunities for learners in rural schools and fellow educators. Method: Convergence design was used; mixed methods approach purposive sampling procedure was followed to select participants who were interviewed telephonically, and questionnaires were distributed physically to the respondents. Results and Discussion: Results showed that Life Orientation teachers and curriculum advisors teachers (participants) agreed that guidance and counselling is an enterprise that promotes learners’ performance. The study concludes that if guidance and counselling is implemented effectively the performance of learners in rural areas will improve. Research Implications: The study recommends that the department should promote the implementation of guidance and counselling by reviewing areas of guidance and counselling that need to be strengthened in rural areas. Originality/Value: This study contributes to literature by highlighting the imperative aspects of guidance and counselling which promome excellent academic achievement.