The induction of counselling activities in the schools is one of the most pleasurable things that have been done to bring education in line with national aspiration and goals. In developing countries, it is still in its primitive state as ill-organized, ill-planned, inadequately supported program, but the dire need for it is becoming convincingly clear. Counselling, which contributes enormously to link educational experiences to growth needs, is intensifying and catching on.
The principle of responsibility for citizenship in any country emphasizes the self-directive character of the individual. One must make one’s own decisions. The school seeks to give back to society’s successive young generations who are able to discharge their responsibility wisely. The counselling cell within the school seeks to provide young people experience in encountering their problems squarely, scrutinize them systematically, and designing a course of action concerning them. Self-thinking, self-direction, and the habit of making use of all available information and counsel are sought. The counselling service does not necessarily gather information about a student, call him in, and apprise him what to do next. Such meaningless procedure would nullify completely the school’s bounden duty to give students vital experience in formulating their own judgments and planning their own natural courses of action.
Youth are not to be left unassisted and are not left to fend for themselves when problems arise. By its very nature and purpose, counselling assumes that mature, experienced teachers and trained counsellors can be of immense help when problems arise and appropriate career decisions are to be made. The underlying fact is that the knowledge and experience of the elder shall not dominate the younger in the problem-solving situation.
For counselling is sharing; and in the sharing of experience, all hands benefit. The idea of taking counsel together is paramount in the counselling work of the modern public school. Above all the student whose problem is at hand will be one of the principal participants. In this way, he is his own counselor, and he will be his own judge. Thus, counselling, through a cooperative approach to problems, try to close in a problem from all angles with all possible potential information and gives youth an opportunity to make choices intelligently.
There were times when students were not permitted to know their standing on the tests they had taken. Fear was expressed that harm might be done if the truth were known. However, more harm would be done to when the facts are censored than when they faced squarely. In this context, we have certainly undermined the capacity of youth to face facts. Are we not doing injustice to a high school boy, who dreams about becoming a doctor if we withhold from him the fact that his scientific ability is too low, his aptitude and achievement in Biology deficient, and his health too unstable to become a successful doctor? He will be grateful and happier if he is encouraged to share in a frank evaluation of his potentialities in relation to the eligibility of medical profession.
The job of counseling would be relatively simple if the relationship is confined to the counsellor and the pupil in the school. But parents, near and dear ones, astrologer, teacher, doctor, coach, and many others must be involved if the job is to be well done. Real self-reliance cannot develop in a young person unless all hands cooperate to that end. Taking counsel together will involve all who have a contribution to make to its solution. One of the common maladies of School counsellors is that they confine their work too largely to the pupils in the school and do not reach out to all others to arrive at effective counselling.