14 Apr 2016

 Giving students knowledge, life skills and motivation to achieve their personal best in life is essential, as it instills in them skills that prepare them for future employment, social integration and participation in the community.

For this reason, the government of Botswana in 1963 introduced Career Masters for each secondary school to provide support services to learners with the initial focus on career guidance.

During that time, only career guidance was introduced and the whole package of Guidance and Counselling such as Personal, Social, Educational and Career Guidance were left out.

Responding to a questionnaire on the importance of Guidance and Councelling Programme in public schools, the Ministry of Education and Skills Development public relations officer, Mr Silas Sehularo said through the introduction of Guidance and Counselling in public schools, the government had been able to achieve the development of the Handbook on Guidelines for Botswana Guidance and Counselling practitioners (1987).

Development of Policy guidelines (1996) and Curriculum guidelines, Mr Sehularo said resulted in a comprehensive Guidance and Counselling programme in schools, which in turn resulted in the recognition of senior teacher Guidance and Counselling teacher as a portfolio (1997) and development of guidance support materials.

Additionally, he said a comprehensive Guidance and Counselling programme in schools also resulted in compulsory time tabling of guidance lessons, provision of office structure for guidance teachers and inclusion of roll out of Guidance and Counselling to primary school (1985).

The programme, Mr Sehularo said also resulted in students being able to deal with some of their personal problems that hinder learning and also formal training of Guidance and Counselling teachers (late 1980), relief of Senior Teacher I Guidance and Counselling in secondary schools from teaching other subjects 1996/7.

“Since its inception, the Guidance and Counselling Programme which has now also been introduced in all government schools, is running well within the curriculum, as other subjects,” he said.

Through Guidance and Counselling Programmes in public schools, students are afforded an opportunity to talk about various issues which they feel uncomfortable talking about with their parents, such as sex and drugs and alcohol abuse.

Students are also advised on how to deal with emotional conflicts and personal problems, both in school and at home and how to incorporate the same life skills in their daily lives.

Despite this, Mr Sehularo said in some schools the programme was given less supervisory attention, because it was not examinable. To address this challenge, he said there was need to increase the number of Guidance and Counselling teachers in schools, so as to deal with the growing numbers of student population in most schools.

Currently, he said the allocated class time for Guidance and Counselling was limited. In an effort to address this challenge, Mr Sehularo said the following measures had been put in place, in service training of Guidance and Counselling teachers by the Ministry of Education and Skills Development and the private sector, building of school Guidance and Counselling teams, as well as cluster or regional teams and involvement of stakeholders to interact with learners on specific areas.

Despite coming up with these measures to address shortage of Guidance and Counselling teachers in schools, Ministry of Education and Skills Development public relations officer said time was still not sufficient to address the holistic developmental needs of learners.

The main problem, in addressing some challenges that have been experienced in introducing Guidance and Counselling Programme in public schools, he said was that the inadequate budget in most case limits the initiatives to address challenges.

Therefore, Mr Sehularo said there was need to examine the Programme so that learners may take it seriously. Currently, he said Guidance and Counselling has been introduced in all public schools country-wide, both in primary and secondary schools. ENDS