PASTORAL COUNSELLORS

Mdm Ho Geok Choo asked the Minister for Education are there sufficient numbers of pastoral counsellors in the schools, the polytechnics, and the universities to cope with the increase in counselling case-loads and what are the qualifications required of these counsellors.

Mr Tharman Shanmugaratnam (for the Minister for Education): Sir, our schools run a tiered counselling system to meet students' counselling needs. All teachers are in the first tier in dealing with students who need counselling and advice. They are all given training in Basic Counselling Skills. Pupils who need a higher level of help are referred to Teacher Counsellors. There are two in each school. These Teacher Counsellors are trained in more advanced counselling and crisis intervention skills. Pupils requiring further assistance are referred to educational psychologists and guidance specialists at the MOE, ie, the Psychological and Guidance Services Branch of the MOE. We have about 40 such specialists, all with post-graduate training in either education psychology or guidance and counselling.

Schools are also provided with funds to engage part-time counselling services, and indeed this is quite prevalent. To further augment the counselling resources of schools and school clusters, the School Counsellor Scheme was introduced last year. We have trained suitable retired education officers under the scheme, so that schools can tap on them as additional counselling support. By July this year, 30 school counsellors will be deployed to our schools or school clusters to provide further counselling support. MOE is prepared to train more of such counsellors if schools need their services. More broadly, schools work with Family Service Centres, VWOs and the self-help groups. Taken in totality, we have a comprehensive network of support, and the Ministry and schools will be quite happy to work with the various agencies to improve our use of this network of support.

Our universities, polytechnics and ITE run their own counselling services to meet the needs of their students. Qualified professional counsellors offer personal guidance and counselling supported by a network of para-counsellors drawn from among the academic staff. They provide a range of services, not just one-to-one counselling but also regular workshops and talks on topics like emotional health, building of relationships, and stress and time management. The universities, polytechnics and ITE have the autonomy to deploy their resources in ways that best serve their students, including providing more counselling services if they feel that this is necessary.