Speak up before it’s too late
On February 29, Minister Ruairi Quinn intends to remove the compulsory allocation for guidance counsellors in schools and colleges. Our profession which has 40 years’ service to the education system is about to be made extinct with one sweep of a pen.
It has become apparent, in meeting with fellow guidance counsellors, that our predicament could be attributed to the fact that not many people know or understand what we actually do in schools. I believe the minister himself has very little knowledge of what we do in schools. This is mainly due to the fact that most of our work is one-to-one, confidential and therefore anonymous. We tend to blend into the background to retain our status as a confidential service for students. We are caring professionals and not militant people or self-promoters and are perhaps seen as a soft touch when it comes to education cuts.
