An examination of the role, challenges and needs of the Singapore school counselling service

This study seeks to understand the perception of the roles, challenges and needs of school counsellors in the Singapore education system. As the provision of counselling service in schools is fairly new and unexamined in this country, this research aims to explore the perceived role of identity relating to its provision, execution and resonance with significant others interrelated to this role. As counselling in Singapore is frequently misconceived as a service for the weak or mentally incapacitated, negative views are often erroneously attached or linked to this profession, in turn possibly affecting the morale and perceived identity of the school counsellors. As the context of the Singapore schools become increasingly multi-faceted in nationality, culture, religion and race, the more imperative it is for efficacious provision of this role into schools. It appears that diversity, misconception and misunderstanding or lack of appropriate skills and knowledge can be common among the practice of school counselling, resulting in a perceived lowered self-efficacy amongst counsellors which may create tensions, lack of confidence or even possibly the consideration of career switch or departure from the service altogether. As a beginning phase to attempt to understand and identify key issues previously unrecognized by this profession, a qualitative study was undertaken with fourteen school counsellors and two school principals who had all left their respective services completely. All the participants chosen were from schools from different parts of the country with different school contextual backgrounds to provide an array of views from diverse classes, socio-economic levels and nature of institutions. This phenomenological research using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis has given voice to the school counselling service, identifying assumptions prior to entering the counselling service, challenges during their professional engagement and eventual departure from the profession altogether. A total of 29 main themes and 31 sub-themes were reported by the participants in this study, all whom had previously been teachers who had converted to the role of a school counsellor. Specifically, data obtained revealed that the current practice of school counselling has embedded within it many grey areas which warrant further investigations. This included the challenges of the job not just in relation to the students but significant others around the child inclusive of school teachers, administrators and parents. These challenges may have been directly linked to several factors with two most prominent ones being the rapid social development of the children and the training provided for the school counsellors prior to their acceptance of the role. Similarly the support provided for the school counselling profession was also discovered to be insufficient and lacking in effective areas, leading on to a perceived lowered self-efficacy on the part of the participants. The values and knowledge from the key findings of this study aim to help in the alignment of Ministry of Education’s future planning of selection, training areas and accurate provision of support for school counsellors. These had been adapted from the recommendations from the participants of this study whose personal experiences and observations were derived from their daily work. Similarly suggestions for future researchers were also made for potential studies to continue the contribution of knowledge and real-life experience data into the theory and practice of the Singapore school counselling service. TEST DAT