Proposing a collaborative approach for school counseling

Abstract

School counseling services in Malaysia have remained unpopular since their establishment in 1963. Given the rising challenges faced by school children, there is a need to conduct a qualitative study to understand the school counselors’ experiences, their counseling approaches working with secondary school students in Malaysia, and also how the students could better benefit from their services. A total of 12 school counselors were interviewed using a semistructured interview approach. A thematic analysis was conducted to discover the emerging themes from the interview scripts. The findings revealed the voices of school counselors who yearned for better collaborative school counseling approaches. Therefore, a collaborative approach demonstrating how various educational stakeholders such as schoolteachers, parents, and the wider community can work collaboratively in the Malaysian secondary school context is proposed.

Keywords::

• school counseling
• collaborative approach
• secondary school
• Malaysian education

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jin Kuan Kok

Dr. Jin Kuan Kok is Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology and Counseling, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. Her research interests are school counseling, school psychology, suicide, and adolescent development. She specialized in using a qualitative research methodology approach under a constructivist and interpretative mode.

Sew Kim Low

Ms. Sew Kim Low, a lecturer at the Department of Psychology and Counseling, Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman. Her research interests are school counseling, psychological and mental health challenges, multicultural and diversity counseling, and educational and development psychology. She is a registered counselor with the Malaysian Counselor Council.