School guidance cuts may be worse than expected

Education Minister Ruairi Quinn has admitted the cutback in guidance for second-level students is even worse than counsellors themselves have claimed.

The preliminary findings of a survey sought by his department shows most schools are losing an hour a day of guidance services because of staffing changes he introduced in September, with larger schools losing more than double that.

While describing it as less than was being claimed to be lost, Mr Quinn said a survey sought by his department shows guidance hours have been cut by 25%.

“Yes, there have been some reductions in the number of guidance hours available to schools, but certainly not of the order as some have claimed,” the minister told a conference on guidance yesterday.

However, the Institute of Guidance Counsellors said this is worse than the 21% indicated in its poll of schools in January.

“The figures suggests 25% yet our survey only suggested 21%. He may well have shot himself in the foot there. Based on the figures stated in his speech, that loss is actually greater than what was in our survey,” said IGC president Gerry Flynn.

The preliminary findings of the study by the National Council for Guidance in Education were outlined by Mr Quinn at its national conference yesterday.

The council surveyed more than 250 schools and found the reduction is an average of five hours a week in schools with between 400 and 700 students. Around 300 second-level schools fall into this category, and would mostly have had one full-time guidance counsellor before the changes.

But for about 140 schools with more than 700 students, the average cut is 11.5 hours a week, although these schools would have had more than one counsellor under the old system. The survey suggests four hours a week is being lost in the 280 schools with enrolments of less than 400.

Mr Flynn said: “The minister failed to refer to a huge reduction in one-to- one counselling, as the IGC survey found counsellors now have less than half the time they previously had for this work.

“There’s a lot of evidence from principals and other sources that demand for counselling services is actually increasing.”