Perception of educational psychologists, counsellors, teachers and parents on constraints of domestic helps in Niger State: Counselling and psychological interventions

Abstract

Domestic helps are persons who are involved in labour for little wages in various homes or different family background rather than theirs, facing a lot of constraints and are thereby denied freedom of rights to education, health and safety. This study was aimed at investigating the perception of educational psychologists, counsellors, teachers and parents on constraints of domestic helps in Niger State. One research question and three hypotheses were raised and tested in the study. The population for the study consisted of all the educational psychologists, counsellors, teachers and parents of secondary schools students, while 130 were mainly selected in Niger State. Stratified random sampling technique was used to select 130 respondents. The study adopted a self-developed questionnaire titled “Perception of Educational Psychologists, Counsellors, Teachers and Parents on Constraints of Domestic Helps Questionnaire” (PEPCTPCDHQ). It was validated by 2 experts in Counselling Psychology and Measurement and Evaluation, IBB University, Lapai Nigeria. With test-re-test reliability index of 0.89, it was found suitable for use. Data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Hypotheses 1-3 were tested using t-test analysis. The finding showed that many educational psychologists, counsellors and teachers showed positive responses while few among the parents agreed with the pre-disposing constraints of domestic helps. The result indicated that there were no significant difference among the respondents on the basis of gender and school type of educational psychologists, counsellors and teachers respectively. However, Parents differ in their perception based on location. Some of the constrains of domestic helps include hard labour, maltreatment, punishment, little wages, denial of education, early marriage, sexually seduced, infections, among others. Counselling strategies to be adopted to address these constraints have been discussed, such as cognitive behaviour therapy and reality therapy. Conclusion and Recommendations were also presented including; free education, ban on domestic helps of children, advocacy campaign through media, compulsory education and community based counselling.