CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1.1   BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY

The field of school based guidance and counseling programs have been designed to help students gain career awareness within the educational system. Over the years the field has been confronted with great challenges that make it more difficult to provide students with strong career guidance.  Guidance professional in many public schools are often assigned large work loads. The average US students’ counselor ratio is 479 to 1and it grows to more than 1000 to 1 in some schools (American school counselor association, 2010). This contrasts greatly with what is necessary to ensure adequate students services. The American school counselor association recommends a student counselor ratio of 250 to 1. In order to implement comprehensive developmental school counseling program designed to meet the needs of all students. (American School Counseling Association, 2010).

Further complicating these high ratios, guidance professionals are at times redirected to assignments that do not match or need their professional counseling skills. Responsibilities may include such diverse activities as conducting testing programs, registering students for courses, filling out college application, handling disciplinary issues and monitoring student’s records. Some of these activities such as coordinating and administering cognitive, aptitude and achievement tests have been declared inappropriate by the American School Counselor Association, while others merely stretch the limit of any individual professional, leaving less time to focus on direct student services such as career guidance. A survey of high schools counselor in Florida found that more than 30% reported that “actual career counseling” occupied very little of their time (Osborn, Debra and Baggerly, 2004)

There is also a dichotomy between what counselor need to know about helping students make good educational and career decision and what counselors learn in their counselor preparatory programs. Many counselor preparatory programs focus predominantly on mental health models rather than academic and career development models (Martin 2002). Thus some guidance professionals lack current and accurate knowledge concerning career guidance and emerging career opportunities and may have outdated perceptions about post secondary options that impact the information they share with students (Mitkos, et. al. 2008).

The term “school counseling” broadly refers to the process of meeting the needs of students in several areas of development, such as academic career and personal. Experts agree that professional school counseling program should be “comprehensive in scope, preventive in design and developmental in nature”.

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