Norman Grindley/Deputy Chief Photographer
Dr. Grace Kelly, president of the Jamaica Association of Guidance Counsellors in Education.

Daraine Luton, Sunday Gleaner Reporter

Guidance counsellors in many of our island's schools are being called upon to perform other tasks often at the risk of not having available time to attend to their core function of advising students. In fact, there is no code of conduct in schools guiding counsellors on how best to perform their duties.

Dr. Grace Kelly, president of the Jamaica Association of Guidance Counsellors in Education (JAGCE), wants counsellors to be treated with the respect she thinks they deserve.

"We have our own expertise," she told a recent Gleaner Editors' Forum, while adding that guidance counsellors complement teachers and are not substitute instructors.

Roles not clearly stated

Yvonne Eubank, the general secretary of the JAGCE, says one of the main reasons for the counsellors' plight is that their roles are not defined.

"The roles and responsibilities of counsellors are not clearly stated by the Ministry of Education, and as a result, you find that there are different counsellors in different schools who are given roles that are not in the framework of what a counsellor ought to be doing," Eubank says.

The various roles, she explains, extend to the teaching of academic subjects and, in some cases, odd tasks such as running tuck shops.

Kelly contends that guidance counsellors come to the education sector with their own expertise that are demanded and needed in the system. "Like in the health sector ... guidance counsellors will complement the work of the teachers, but they should not be referred to as teachers," she states.

Not properly paid

Kelly adds that when counsellors are classified as teachers they are not compensated for their expertise and sometimes are paid at the level of a pre-trained teacher.

Given all the problems, the counsellors want to see the introduction of a comprehensive national guidance counselling programme in schools.

She argues that this must be systematic as well as systemic, designed to achieve specific outputs.

"Studies have shown that there is a significant reduction in crime and violence when you have a systemic and systematic guidance programme implemented in the schools," she told the Gleaner Editors' Forum.