Guidance counselling and schools

Sir, – I am writing in relation to a significant issue of inequity. This will not come as a shock to any parent of students in schools outside of mainstream education, and the issue has been raised to policymakers in the past too. Yet the inequity remains.

Guidance counselling is not a luxury, nor is it a form of support which is only for those intending to progress from the Leaving Cert to third level via the CAO. It is a legislated right of all children with or without disabilities and with other special educational needs under the Education act 1998, Section 9(c). The role of guidance counselling, according to the Department of Education, is to facilitate people “to manage their own educational, training, occupational, personal, social, and life choices so that they reach their full potential and contribute to the development of a better society”.

Why, then, is there no allocation of guidance counselling in non-mainstream schools? The message it is sending out is an assumption that “those students” have less important futures ahead of them compared to mainstream education students. – Yours, etc,

PETRA ELFTORP,