Background of the Study

Human society is constantly being changed by the physical
environment just as the latter is changed by human activities. Thus, the
observation by Ekpo (1996) that the difficulties being experienced by the
adolescents in educational, socio-personal and vocational adjustments could
be attributed in part to environmental changes due to the increasing
complexity of the contemporary world in both developed and developing
countries. These difficulties create psycho-social problems among the
schooling adolescents that have potential impact on their low self-concept
formation.

In Nigeria, specifically during the civil strife of between 1967 and
1970 the resultant imbalance in the social, economic and political systems
reached alarming stages. The psycho-social decay distorted and disoriented
the moral development of the citizens, particularly those of the children and
adolescents. As a result, such social vices as vandalization of public
properties, stealing, armed robbery, cultism, forgery, examination
malpractice, sex abuse among others became enthroned among the youthful
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adolescents (Ekpo, 1996). These vices may be, were the products of the
prevalent low self-concept formation in some Nigerian adolescents.
The above scenario experienced among Nigerian adolescents
conforms with the later findings expressed by Olowu (1983, 1985) in
Nigeria, Mwanalushi (1979) in Zambia and Krystall (1973) in Kenya, that
the changes in the socialization environment and the process of people,
particularly the youths in developing/transitional societies had a warping
effect on the self-concepts of adolescents. They listed such transitional
societies as mainly African, Asian and Latin-American societies that are
moving from their traditional ways of life to the new ways of the Western
cultures. These changes which are by-products of such transition, are often
accompanied by uncertainty and unpredictability, which in turn engender
insecurity and anxiety which ultimately affect the self-concept of people and
adolescents.

Perhaps in realization of the obvious negative consequence of society
infested with psychologically maladjusted adolescents that the Federal
Government of Nigeria in the National Policy on Education (FRN, 2004,
Revised) entrenched a formal guidance and counselling Programme in her
secondary school system aimed at taking care of such students’
maladjustment problems.