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A school counselor is a trained individual who supports the academic and emotional progress of a child.
In most of our public schools today, we lack the services of a counselor, and this to some extent affects the future and growth of the school and the learners. The truth remains that there are some simple issues that should have been handled by the school counselor, but since they are not available, the child suffers.
In the rural schools, most children stay with their grandparents or aunties who might not have the time to give them the moral support that they need, so the child might end up harbouring what is disturbing him or her or might tell it to the wrong person or a fellow student who might not be able to guide him well. Whereas if there was a counselor, the student would have sought help from there.
Furthermore, we might think that the teacher is there to do all the tasks, but have it in mind that the teacher is already stressed with other curricular and extracurricular activities and might not be able to play the role of a counselor well or to the best of his ability.
Now, if you carefully observe, students make mistakes even in the least things such as subject combination or career choice, and it gets to affect them in the future. Some students decide to choose a career path just because their friends have chosen the same.
Therefore, the importance of a school counselor cannot be overemphasized, especially in our public schools.
Government should ensure that more employment is done in that field, or in the case that government can't employ people to fill in that position, the school management can train one or two staff to also handle that office, as this will go a long way to help our children and their future.
