Importance Of School Counselling

1.0 Introduction

School counsellors are an integral part of today’s educational system. In Malaysia, we can find counsellors all over in primary school, secondary school, college and even university. As a school counsellor, they need to work with the school management in planning and implementing a school-wide counselling system. Besides, they need to provide some services like case consultations to school and parents, counselling intervention to at- risk students and deal with counselling- related issues. According to Derrick Meador, an at-risk student can be defined as a student who struggles in an area or several areas. Those struggles often have an adverse affect on the student's performance at school. School counsellors will also need to identify, analyze and conduct specialised group guidance programmes for at- risk students to foster their proper emotional, social, academic and career development.

2.0 Setting and Background of Interviewees

I had interviewed 5 interviewees to get their perception and misconceptions on counsellor and counselling process. Interviewee A is a teacher in primary school since 1995. She is a mother of 2 sons. Both of her sons are in secondary school now. Interviewee B is a English teacher in primary school since 1993. She worked as a volunteer helpline counselor before she became a teacher.

Interviewee B said there is not much difference since a school teacher also play a role as a counsellor. It is because a school teacher had studied children psychology in institute and he/she has the knowledge to help pupils. However, a school teacher is not as professional as a school counsellor. They still need to seek for the help of a school counsellor when they cannot handle the student’s