Teachers’ Dual Responsibilities: Exploring the Understanding of School Counselors’ Roles Among Secondary School Teachers in Tanzania

Teachers may serve as counselors concurrently for a specific period of time in schools. As teachers and sometimes counselors, their understanding of compounded counseling roles is vital for effective counseling services in schools. However, in Tanzania, little is known about secondary school teachers’ knowledge of diverse counselors’ roles upon their appointment to a school counselor position. This study sought to examine teachers’ knowledge of diverse school counselors’ roles by employing multiple case study design. Nine secondary schools were purposively drawn from three regions in Tanzania where interviews with 11 practicing school counselors and nine focus group discussions with 46 teachers were conducted. The data collected were analyzed through a thematic data analysis technique. The study revealed that teachers had a limited understanding of school counselors’ roles attributed by inadequate training on counseling. However, teachers perceived counseling service provision and collaboration roles as mandatory for the school counselor. The Tanzania Ministry of Education, Science and Technology needs to strengthen in-service and pre-service counseling training through, if effective counseling services are to be delivered in schools. © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2024.