Vocational guidance increase likely

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32703, 4 September 1971, Page 18

Vocational guidance increase likely

(By our education reporter)

A substantial expansion of guidance services in New Zealand secondary schools is to be considered soon by the Government.

The present group of 58 guidance councellors is likely to be increased to more than 350, allowing two such counsellors for large schools and one in smaller schools.

A report of a working party on secondary school guidance services is before the Minister of Education (Mr Taiboys). This will be sent to all schools and professional bodies before a firm change of policy is announced. Accompanying the gradual introduction of the larger counselling group will be extended training for such counsellors. Also, the parttime work of career advisers will be taken over, full time, by guidance counsellors. Recognition of the need for extended guidance services is part of a general trend in New Zealand secondary education, which is moving from a subject-dominated system to one more related to the pupil’s personal needs. Parental role Several other factors have also influenced the moves to extend secondary school gui-

dance services. Prominent among these is the increasing responsibility being placed on the school to deal with problems which were once dealt with by the pupil’s parents. Also, with the growth of large senior school groups there is an increasing need for more educational and vocational guidance taking account of those young people who do not intend to go to university. With the development of the extended guidance services in the schools there is likely to be a new role for the present Vocational Guidance Service run by the Department of Education. Schools will take more direct responsibility for such guidance, the service retaining, however, its advisory role. Confirming that an extension in the secondary school guidance services is likely, the Assistant DirectorGeneral of Education (Mr W. L. Renwick) said in Christchurch yesterday that secondary schools were responding positively to the fact that young people were continually in need of specialised guidance. “Whether parents are acepting their responsibility is one question; but teachers

feel they are accepting a responsibility—one which they cannot ignore,” Mr Renwick said. Career courses It was important, he added, that schools accept more responsibility for vocational guidance. “I’d like to see introduced into school programmes explicit teaching on the world of work. There is definitely a need for this,” Mr Renwick said. As schools moved away from the old, strict course structure in the early highschool years the question of educational guidance became all-important, he said. Pupils would not be asked as in the past to choose particular courses too soon in their high school life, and therefore, Mr Renwick said, guidance towards a career was important. Mr Renwick, who is also chairman of the working party which has prepared the report, said that he saw any extension of guidance counselling as part of a network of guidance, and not something set apart from the classroom teacher, school principal, or outside advisory services.