By: Nadine Wilson-Harris
A shortage of guidance counsellors in schools has rendered ineffective major initiatives by the education ministry to provide intervention for students with behavioural challenges.
Tracey-Ann Taffe Thompson, a former president of the Jamaica Association of Guidance Counsellors in Education, told Freedom Come Rain Newspaper that there has been a jump in the demand for counsellors on account of the myriad of challenges facing children. Just last week, one student was arrested for brutally attacking a younger schoolmate at the BB Coke High School, who it was alleged had stepped on his shoes. Based on media reports, the older boy had gotten into trouble at the school on previous occasions. He has since been charged.
Just a few days after that incident, another student at the Steer Town Academy was reportedly beaten by six girls after she was accused of stepping on one of their shoes. The female student became unconscious and had to be rushed to the hospital. The police are investigating that matter.
Speaking at the October 2022 launch of Just Medz It, a year-long campaign aimed at shifting the culture of violent confrontations and responses among children and students in schools, education minister Fayval Williams noted that there was a need to scale up efforts to provide psychosocial support for children.
“Our students are showing up at school psychologically and physically abused. Not only that, these same children also witness violence in the home and in their communities. The result of this is fights, instances of stabbing, and other deviant behaviours at the slightest trigger,” she said.
“What we are witnessing in our schools is not normal; it is as a result of major psycho-social issues, which include family problems, depression, anxiety, substance abuse, sexual abuse, and the violence that our children are experiencing,” Williams pointed out.
Through the programme, the Education Ministry had hoped to see the level of violence in schools reduced by 50 percent by November 2023. Nearly one year after that launch, it does not appear that goal will be achieved.
Taffe-Thompson, a guidance counsellor at a primary school in the volatile downtown Kingston area, believes there is a need to put more guidance counsellors in the schools. Currently, the Ministry of Education’s targeted ratio is one counsellor to 500 students, but in some schools, the guidance counsellors are responsible for way more students.
“Programmes are good on paper, but the actual implementation and evaluation of set programmes is a lot on the counselors,” said Taffe-Thompson.
“They need more counsellor in the schools to enforce the programmes, because that is another reason why programmes die; you don’t have anybody to carry them out,” she asserted.
Acting chief education officer, Dr. Kasan Troupe, told the Public Administration and Appropriations Committee of Parliament (PAAC) last December that there were 1,198 guidance counsellors in the school system. She said there was a need for 292 more to maximise the targeted ratio of one counsellor to 500 students.
This year May, the Education Ministry attracted the ire of educators and the Parent Teachers Association at the Independence City Primary School in Portmore, St. Catherine, after the Ministry reportedly removed one of two guidance counsellor posts at the school.
According to media reports, the school has 1100 students, however, based on a correspondence from the ministry, it was explained that they could pay for only one counsellor. Teachers and parents staged a protest on May 1.
An appeal has come from several quarters for more attention to be given to children who are at risk of becoming violence producers. A United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 2018 situation analysis showed that approximately 65 percent of students are bullied at school and that 79 percent witness violence in the home or community. Police Commissioner Major General Antony Anderson disclosed during a press conference in November 2022 that 875 charges had been laid against children from 2019 up to November 1, 2022.
