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ABSTRACT
The Irish Education Act (Government of Ireland 1998) stipulates that each young person in secondary school in Ireland is entitled to access ‘appropriate’ guidance. It has been argued that this very right has been eroded since Budget 2012, where resource re-allocations in guidance counselling are obstructing the requirement for schools to implement this section of the Act. This qualitative study explored the effects of ‘educational cutbacks’ from the perspective of guidance counsellors. Findings from interviews with guidance counsellors, suggest that the effects of such cutbacks in guidance counselling are far-reaching and ultimately students are the one’s losing out. The paper proposes that there is a need to reinstate guidance counselling hours to allow guidance counsellors provide a comprehensive service to young people – which they are entitled to.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes on contributors
Ms. Edel Leahy has been teaching for nine years and is a class teacher at Coláiste Nano Nagle, Limerick. She has a primary degree in Business as well as a graduate diploma in Business Education from the University of Limerick. Edel has also completed both a Diploma and Masters in Guidance and Counselling at the University of Limerick. Her Masters research explored the views and attitudes of guidance counsellors relating to the impact that the Transition Year Programme has on their current work in light of educational cutbacks to the provision of Guidance Counselling.
Dr Joanne O’Flaherty is a Lecturer in the School of Education, University of Limerick. She has a primary degree in Physical Education and English. Joanne has worked in a variety of educational settings, including the formal post-primary sector and the NGO sector, before joining the University of Limerick faculty as a Lecturer in Education. Her PhD research involved a longitudinal study of the levels of moral reasoning of an undergraduate population of an Irish university, and she has published extensively in this area. She is responsible for both coordinating and disseminating different education modules offered by the School of Education at both undergraduate and post-graduate level. Currently she is responsible for the Coordination of the Micro-Teaching programme offered by the School of Education, and acts as the Academic Coordinator of the Ubuntu Network.
Dr. Lucy Hearne is Course Director of the MA in Guidance Counselling and Lifespan Development, in the School of Education, University of Limerick. She was a recipient of an Irish Research Council for Humanities and Social Sciences (IRCHSS) award in 2006 for her doctoral study on progression in adult guidance. Subsequent funding awards for her research include an IRCHSS research award in 2011, and an Irish Research Council (IRC) New Foundations award, IRC Starter Research Grant and a University of Limerick Faculty Seed Funding Grant 2014.
Notes
1. Applications for entry to undergraduate courses in universities, colleges of education, institutes of technology and some other institutes of higher education, are processed by the Central Applications Office (CAO).
2. The uniquely Irish Transition Year (TY) programme is a one-year, stand-alone, optional programme for 15–16 year olds (Jeffers, Citation2004), taken by some 40% of fourth year students before they progress to the Leaving Certificate. The overarching aim of TY is to ‘promote the personal, social, educational and vocational development of pupils and to prepare them for their role as autonomous, participative and responsible members of society [by providing] a broad educational experience with a view to the attainment of increased maturity’ (DES, Citation1993, p. 3).