Gallagher Urges a Revision of Guidance Counsellor Hours in Post-Primary Schools

In a recent speech made in Seanad Éireann, Senator Robbie Gallagher highlighted the importance of guidance for Irish students and young people, especially in the post-Covid context, as well as mental health and examination pressures.

The Senator detailed that prior to Budget 2012, “there was an ex gratia allocation of hours,” whereby the Department of Education would decide centrally. Since 2012, however, Senator Gallagher notes that the allocation of appropriate guidance for each individual school was divested in school principles instead. This effectively means that there are over 800 different interpretations of what constitutes ‘appropriate guidance.’ The Senator understands that school staff say that this policy has led to an unequal and disproportionate allocation in relation to DEIS, fee-paying and non-fee paying schools.

Furthermore, Senator Gallagher acknowledges that school managements have dealt with the loss of guidance allocation differently, with very different outcomes for such schools. Evidence shows an increased inequality of access to emotional care between schools with a greater emphasis on career guidance in fee-paying schools rather than counselling, while schools in the FES experienced a greater demand for counselling services. Therefore, some schools made conscious decisions to focus attention on career guidance, as distinct from counselling, while others decided to remove guidance counsellors from their duties and put them in a classroom teaching academic subjects. Such decisions relate to differing pressures with regard to student academic achievement rather than counselling and affective support.

The Senator concluded that this decision was “a backward step and one I propose we look at again,” asking that “the Minister for Education, Deputy Foley, comes to the House to discuss this issue. Our young people should be given all the necessary supports they so richly deserve in order that they can be the best they can be in their future careers.”