Guidance and counselling is an enterprise that promotes learner performance internationally and in South Africa. Guidance and counselling is offered in schools, despite that learners continue to perform badly. The purpose of this study was to investigate the effectiveness of guidance and counselling as an enterprise for promoting learner performance in rural secondary schools in Vhembe District. Data were collected using a mixed methods approach and a purposive sampling procedure was followed to select participants who were either interviewed telephonically or who completed questionnaires that were physically administered. Results showed that Life Orientation teachers and curriculum advisors agreed that guidance and counselling is an enterprise that promotes learner performance. The results further established that individual counselling sessions for learners with varying performance improves their understanding and that when rural learners are offered guidance before writing a task, their performance improves. The study concludes that if guidance and counselling is implemented effectively, the performance of learners in rural areas will improve. The study recommends that the implementation of guidance and counselling be promoted by reviewing areas that need to be strengthened, particularly, for learners in rural areas.

KEYWORDS: Assessment tasks; enterprise; guidance and counselling; guidance counselling; learner performance; professional school counsellors