‘More guidance counsellors needed to fulfil targets’

GUIDANCE counsellors must be given more time to help young people with career and subject choices if Government targets to meet economic requirements are to be met, a conference heard yesterday.

Frank Mulvihill, president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors (IGC), called on Education Minister Mary Hanafin to restore the situation in second-level schools to the 1980s, when a full-time counsellor was appointed for every 250 students.

Schools are only entitled to a full-time counsellor if it has at least 500 students, with some exceptions for disadvantaged schools and others under various schemes in recent years.