Lack of funds hinder career guidance

SECOND-LEVEL students are being left without modern materials to perform tests that can help advise on careers, subject choices and difficulties with reading or maths due to inadequate government funding, guidance counsellors have claimed.

The Department of Education provides each second-level school with €250 a year, or just €150 if it has fewer than 350 students, to help meet the cost of test materials. An extra €150 is available for schools getting the grant for the first time.

These tests can be used by guidance counsellors, learning support and special education teachers. The first comprehensive list of approved tests was issued in a recent letter to schools.

The Institute of Guidance Counsellors said schools can pay thousands of euro a year to update tests, buy answer sheets or support computer programmes.

“Any school should be able to build up a stock of tests in different areas each year, to provide help for students in their learning and choices about careers and subjects,” said president of the institute, Frank Mulvihill.

“But the grant is totally inadequate and we hope it will be addressed, as an average school testing 100 students a year could require up to €4,000 a year to buy new tests or replace existing ones,” Mr Mulvihill said.

Tests can help identify career and study options, measure general skills and abilities or help teachers target their work depending on each student’s learning style.

The department said grant assistance for test materials is paid on top of annual budgets for each school, based on their student numbers.

“This affords schools flexibility in the use of these resources to cater for the needs of their pupils,” a spokesperson said.

A second-level school receives €316 for each student, with a further support services grant of €189 per student, providing payment to a 500-student second-level school of more than €250,000 for operating costs and services.