Abstract

The importance of engaging professional counsellors in all educational sectors cannot be emphasized especially at the primary school level. As a result, pupils in Primary education require the assistance of professional counsellors to ameliorate the challenges pupils face in the study of mathematics in primary schools which has affected their performances in national common entrance examination into junior secondary one. One of the critical areas of counselling among the three levels of counselling is the academic counselling. This study examined the influence of unavailability of professional counsellors on academic achievement of pupils in mathematics in Ajeromi Ifelodun Local Government Area of Lagos State. The study employed the simple survey research design using the pupils of some selected private schools in Ajeromi Ifelodun Local Government Area of Lagos State. Six hundred and nineteen (619) pupils, 298 males and 321 females from five private schools were randomly selected for the study. An instrument entitled Counselling Accessibility Inventory (CAI) was developed and validated for data collection. Four research questions and one hypothesis guided the study. The study revealed that there was counselling unavailability for academic counselling. Among other things, it is the recommendation of the study that pupils in the primary schools should be exposed to various counselling interventions through which the problems emanating from fear, anxiety and phobia concerning mathematics in the primary institutions would be taken care of in order to achieve their academic goals through to secondary schools.