MP calls for guidance, counselling coordinators in schools
The Member of Parliament (MP) for Achiase, Mr Robert Kwasi Amoah, has called for the employment of professional guidance and counselling coordinators in Ghana’s educational institutions to guide students in choosing their career paths.
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He said it was unfortunate that after nearly 60 years of nationhood, the country's educational authorities did not still consider guidance and counselling important, and called for a holistic approach to remedy the situation.
According to the MP, it was imperative that fully-fledged counseling units to guide the carrier paths of pupils and students to conform to the developmental needs of the country were made available to the basic schools through to the junior high school levels.
Mr Amoah said the basic stages of education were the most important phase of learning and students needed professional guidance to enable them to make the right choices.
He noted that Ghana’s educational system had placed that crucial life-shaping decision-making concerning career choices at the junior high school, where students were not mature enough to make those choices, in the hands of guidance counsellors.
According to the MP, education played a vital role in the development of a nation and as such Ghana’s policy direction on education should aim at giving pupils and students relevant and high quality education that would serve as a facilitator for rapid socio-economic growth.
"This can only happen when students are guided to identify their strengths and weaknesses, consider their needs, interest, capabilities, values and opportunities," he said.
Mr Amoah, who is a teacher by profession, said most education directorates had, at best, one professional guidance and counselling coordinator who organised one vocational guidance session only when students were choosing their subjects and programmes.
He said lack of professional guidance in basic schools was not aiding career consonance and was contributing to mass graduate unemployment.
Mr Amoah held the view that giving students the right kind of guidance and counselling for career paths would reflect Ghana’s quest to become a middle income country and contribute to the long-term aspiration of economic transformation.
He, thus, suggested that to remedy the situation, more professional counsellors should be trained and posted to all basic schools across the country.
The lawmaker also suggested that intensive in-service training on career development must be given to teachers in basic schools, as well as the introduction of career guidance methods in the curricula of diploma-awarding colleges of education.