STUDENT ADVICE - Call to reverse cuts to guidance counselling

Teachers have called for the immediate reversal of cuts to guidance counselling in the wake of the ESRI report that showed almost half of young people regretted their college or career choices.

The Teachers Union of Ireland said the report made clear the damaging effect of the 2012 cuts which have forced schools to include guidance counsellors as part of their overall staffing allocation. Many counsellors spend up to half their week teaching mainstream subjects instead of being available for one-to-one counselling or academic support.

TUI president Gerry Quinn said: “Of great concern in this report are the issues raised regarding constraints on time for guidance counselling, particularly for more personalised, one-to-one discussion.

“Critically, the report also highlights that guidance counsellors emerged as a particularly strong source of support for young people from working-class backgrounds, so it is clear that the most vulnerable have been targeted by this cut in provision. This needs to be reversed as a matter of urgency.”

Betty McLaughlin, president of the Institute of Guidance Counsellors, said there were 200 secondary schools now without any one-to-one sessions for their students.

She said she the impact would be seen at third level. “There is a correlation between the number of people who will drop out because they are not getting appropriate guidance.”

The report also found that students whose teachers had high expectations of them and encouraged them to consider further education were more likely to continue to third level. Working class schools tended to lack this way of thinking and markedly fewer of their students attended third level.

Philip Nolan, President of NUI Maynooth and chair of the Irish Universities Association task group said this needed to change. “We need to work harder with those schools in order to create expectations and knowledge and understanding of the opportunities that exist in higher education.”

Another key finding was that students were ill-prepared for the type of learning required in third level courses because there was too much reliance on rote learning at second level. Pat King, of the Association of Secondary Teachers of Ireland, said he hoped the finding would help shape planned changes to second level curriculums.