Do primary school children need guidance and counselling services? : a study on year 5 classes

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to identify the needs of guidance and counselling services in Maltese primary schools. The introduction, which concerned the definition of guidance and counselling in relationship with education, provided the framework of the second chapter that included examination of literature of guidance and counselling in primary schools known also as elementary guidance counselling. In this study the writers used two questionnaires. The first one was designed for year 5 pupils, and was conducted with a sample of 300 pupils. This helped the writers to identify the pupils' needs and also to gather their feedback about a special teacher. The second questionnaire was designed for the Form 1 guidance teachers. The writers administered this questionnaire to 20 guidance teachers. This questionnaire was also given to two leaders in the field of guidance and counselling. This second questionnaire helped to ascertain the attitudes and perceptions towards guidance and counselling services in primary schools. The findings of this study show that there is real need for guidance and counselling services. This was evidenced by the answers to the questionnaires of both the pupils and the guidance teachers. The writers' proposals are that first of all, primary school counsellors should be called primary guidance counsellors because the need. is for both guidance and counselling. The number of primary guidance counsellors must increase, and ideally, there should be one guidance counsellor where there are large schools, and a guidance counsellor shared between small schools. It is important that the work of the primary guidance counsellor is advertised so that the students can benefit from this service and the primary teachers can aspire to become guidance counsellors.