Guidance Teachers’ Awareness of Students’ Rights and Its Implications for Counselling Practice in Borno State Secondary Schools

Understanding student rights is foundational to ethical and effective counselling practice, particularly in contexts where historical authoritarian schooling norms may constrain student voice and agency. This study investigated the level of awareness of students' rights among guidance teachers in secondary schools in Borno State, North East Nigeria. A descriptive survey design was used, involving 80 guidance teachers selected from 20 secondary schools in Maiduguri and surrounding local government areas. A researcher-constructed instrument validated through expert review assessed awareness across domains including confidentiality, autonomy, access to information, and protection from discrimination. Frequency counts, percentages, and chi-square analysis were used to interpret results. Findings indicated that over half of guidance teachers demonstrated limited awareness of confidentiality obligations in counselling relationships and were unclear about the boundaries between disciplinary authority and counselling support. Awareness was higher regarding students' rights to access educational information but lower in the areas of psychological safety and non-discriminatory counselling. Years of professional experience did not significantly predict rights awareness, suggesting that in-service training rather than tenure is a stronger determinant. The study concluded that rights-based counselling frameworks remain poorly integrated into guidance practice in Borno State schools. Recommendations included the infusion of human rights education into counsellor training and the development of state-level practice guidelines aligned with national education policy. Keywords: student rights, guidance teachers, counselling practice, Borno State, ethics.