Introduction

The guidance and counselling of pupils is an integral component of the educational

mission of the school. Guidance and counselling services and programs promote the personal,
social, educational, and career development of all pupils. Counselling and guidance is the
process of helping individuals discover and develop their educational, vocational, and
psychological potentialities and thereby to achieve an optimal level of personal happiness and
social usefulness. The concept of counselling is essentially democratic in that the assumptions
underlying its theory and practice are, first, that each individual has the right to shape his own
destiny and, second, that the relatively mature and experienced members of the community are
responsible for ensuring that each persons choice shall serve both his own interests and those
of society (Britannica, n.d).
Shertzer and Stone (1976) defined guidance as a process of helping individuals to
understand themselves and their world.

This implies an on-going assistance given to

individuals who do not completely understand their strengths and weaknesses, as well as their
social, economic, educational and political environment. The definitions highlighted above
suggest that guidance is made up of different services available to students in need to help
show their potentials for the educational, personal, social and vocational development. These
services include orientation, counselling, information, placement, follow-up, appraisal and
referral. Whereby, counselling is a process where the client and counsellor work together to
come with different ways to experience various situations. UNESCO (1999) stated that
counselling is a process by means of which the helper expresses care and concern towards the
person with a problem and facilitates that persons personal growth and brings about change
through self-knowledge or relationship between a concerned person and a person with a need.
This relationship is usually person-to-person, although sometimes, it may involve more than two
people.

The rationale of the Ministry of Education to create the post of full time guidance and
counselling teacher in schools in Malaysia
The pupils life is getting complex day by day. Guidance and counselling is needed to
help the pupils for optimum achievement and adequate adjustment in the varied life situations.
The analysis of the students in the schools shows the need of guidance and counselling
services, in the education, profession, vocation, social, health, moral and personal. It is a simple
enough to say that guidance is a must in primary education. This statement has been made
over and over again. In 1963, the Malaysian Ministry of Education accepted the importance of
school guidance in its schools (Amir & Latiff, 1984). Guidance became an integral part of
education aimed at promoting or stimulating the gradual development of the ability to make
decisions independently without undue influenced from others. However, because of the lack of
financial and human resources, the guidance plans went twisted.
In 1996, the Ministry of Education provided specific guidelines that outlined duties and
functions for this new profession in the school systems (See & Ng, 2010). MOE had stated that
guidance and counselling teachers would no longer be teaching, instead they focus on the
counselling programs. The school counsellors focused on the corrective or orientation
programme comprising of awareness campaigns, seminar or workshop to provide information
and guidance activities. Because students in schools often faced problems related to separation
or divorce of parents, death in the family and unforeseen situations that cause distress, crisis
counselling is therefore a necessity (Mey, 2004).The situation in certain schools had been
greatly improved since and the Ministry of Education (MOE) had created the post of full time
guidance and counselling teacher in schools in this country.
The rationale of this decision comes from the urgent need of introducing the counselling
service in order to meet the various needs of the educational system. Counselling aims to help
in the total development of the student where it should give for clarification of goals and ideas to
pupils in common with their basic potentialities and social tendencies. Rao (2004) said that the
emphasis on intellectual development through the teaching of subjects alone cannot help in the
total development of the students. Some method should be evolved in order to help pupils
understand themselves and helping teachers to understand the pupils. The establishment of full
time counsellor also gives opportunity to the counsellor to know in details about the pupils.
Counsellors would have the responsibility to help students in the proper choices of courses that
would shape their future. In primary schools, the counsellors role should be to help the pupils to
know where they are going to continue their study in the secondary education. They should be

briefed carefully on the next step by the counsellors. Their path to the future should be
explained earlier from primary so that they can recognize their life goals and work hard to
achieve them.
Besides, counselling also helps those pupils to establish proper identity. Rao (2004)
writes, the individual needs a continuous guidance process from early childhood through
adulthood. The guidance and counselling service provided is needed to aid students in dealing
effectively with the normal developmental challenges of adolescence and face life situations
boldly. Situations which related to family problems can be solved with the help from the school
counsellors. The real life challenges could give either positive or negative effects on the pupils.
So, counsellors must be proficient to protect the pupils so that they can face the problems
without affecting their own future. Besides that, pupils have their own time outside the
classrooms. However, the problem lies in how they utilize the time properly as the manner in
which student spend their leisure hours clearly affects their success in achieving both academic
competence and personal development. The counsellors are responsible as they should provide
proper guidance and encouragement to influence the pupils on how they can manage their after
school hours effectively.
Counselling teachers are very important element that needs to be included in schools.
The reason is the teachers, especially the new ones, are not experienced enough to guide them
in terms of guidance and counselling aspect. They do know how to teach, yet they still have little
knowledge on the counselling aspect. This includes how to help the pupils to solve their
personal problem or how to communicate to the problematic students properly. Rao (2004)
states that guidance is not teaching but it may be done by the teachers. Teaching in the
classroom only involves the subjects or the curriculum learnt. However, it does not cover the
emotional aspect of the students on whether they have problems or not. This task lies on the
guidance and counselling teachers. They have been through several courses which qualified
them to be a counsellor. Besides, the establishment of counselling teachers also allows for
sharing the knowledge between them and the classroom teachers. They can give technical
advice on how to deal with pupils emotionally which would to improve the education system in
the school. From there, teachers can also utilize several ways of improving their pupils. As an
example, teachers can carry out tests such personality or interest test towards the pupils. By
doing this, teachers would know more about their pupils preferences and thus, take advantage
of it to improve their teaching. Vice versa, counselling teachers can always refer to the
classroom teachers in solving the academic problems of the pupils.

The effectiveness of guidance and counselling programs implemented in schools to

handle problems among students
In SK Seri Nilam, a few program has been held to improve the pupils academic
performance, social development, potential improvement and mental remedy. As said by the
counsellor in SK Seri Nilam, Encik Bahrim bin Ramli, the program that was recently held was
Temu Murni. This program involved the teachers, year 6 pupils along with their parents. The
pupils and their parents would be attending a discussion session with the classroom teachers.
From this experience, the parents would be provided with the information on how their children
had been performing in school. They would be given insights on the achievement of their
children. This gave the parents an opportunity to be aware of their children learning
development. They would be given a copy of the TOV result where each pupil would be
highlighted on the each subject. The purpose is to show their parents what are the strength and
weakness of their children. Maybe from the information provided, the parents could focus on
which subjects they would give focus on. This allowed them to plan for additional tuition classes
that would help to improve their results in the subjects shown earlier. Besides, for those who are
financially stable, they could provide learning materials such as exercise books for their children
according to the subjects they have problems in.
Besides, through the discussion carried out, parents would be aware of their children
actual performance in school. For those who got unconvincing results, the parents would be
suspecting that their children were having problems. So it generated an opportunity for the
teachers to collaborate with the parents in detecting those problems. Teachers could also
remind parents to keep an eye on their children. They should know who their children friend
with. The responsibility should lie upon the parents as teachers had done everything in school,
but they are not able to do so after school. It depends on the parents to help teachers by always
be aware of their relationships outside the school compound. The pupils might be involved in
social pandemics such as smoking, playing truant or vandalism which is harmful for their
personal development. These problems arise from the relationships with their friends. Thus,
parents should take notice of their children in terms of who they are going out with or who they
are talking to. This is very important in order to prevent them from being involved among the
social illnesses. In certain situations, pupils listen to their friends more rather than their teachers
or even their parents.
Aside from parents, this program also gave many benefits to the pupils themselves.
Through all the talks where pupils were motivated and encouraged, there should be some

improvements made among certain pupils in their attitudes towards achieving success. The
talks would focus on motivating them to work hard. It was expected that all pupils would be
changed, but still there must be some groups that should affected by the talks. Talks about the
parents sacrifices would surely entice the hearts of several pupils especially girls. From there,
they should know how much time, money and efforts were given towards them to achieve
success. The effect would be the pupils motivation to repay their parents with the success they
craved about. Talks were also being held by the teachers and parents, and pupils were also
given opportunity to be alongside their parents. The analysis of the test results would show
them how they performed in school whether they were good or bad. From these exchanges, the
pupils could self-reflect about their performance. Pupils would begin to ask themselves
questions that could improve themselves. They would be asking why they are not so good at
this. As a result, it provided them with the knowledge of what they were lacking. Hence, they
would strive harder to improve their own performance. Besides, pupils should be given advices
from the classroom teachers during the sessions. In this situation, they should be listening more
since their parents were present alongside them. So, teachers could transfer the advices more
conveniently rather than in the classroom.
More than that, Encik Bahrim said, the guidance and counseling unit also shows effort in
improving the pupils spiritually. Early in the morning, all the pupils will go to their class and at
7.30 a.m they will be gathered at the assembly spot to recite the Quran. The recitation will be
handled by the head of pupils. Once the recitation is done, the pupils will read a prayer. This
event is conducted every morning except for Sunday. The main purpose of this event is to clean
the soul of the pupils and to help them clear their mind before starting the class. This event is
very effective in at least helping the pupils in shaping their behavior and moral. Program Guru
Penyayang that was started recently usually held every morning. The assigned teachers will be
waiting at the school gate to welcome the pupils. The teachers will greet the pupils and smile at
them. The rationale of this program is to increase the pupils interest to come to school and
reduce the tendency for the pupils in coming late. Making sure that the pupils entered the school
compound safely is also one of the reason for having Guru Penyayang. This program is not
something new to the school environment as the teachers of SK Seri Nilam are asked to linger
around the school compound to check on pupils arrival. From time to time the problem of pupils
coming late to school will be reduced.
The guidance and counselling unit with the collaboration of language unit has invited a
well known novelist and writer named Madam Ain Maisara to give a short speech and get close

to the pupils. She share her writing experience and expose the pupils the pupils about the
career of writing. The exposure made has open the pupils eyes about how the income of a
writer. Her existence to the school was to launched the NILAM program. The NILAM program
was introduced to increase the awareness on the importance of reading. Besides, from this
NILAM program, teacher will be able to inculcate a good mental and thinking skill among pupils.
Lastly, when the school ended, the teacher will urge all the pupils to go to the schools mosque
to performed Zohor prayer. Most of the pupils usually come home late waiting for their parents.
Instead of walking around the school doing something unbeneficial, the school authorities take
this effort to help the pupils doing things that benefit them. This event is to avoid the pupils from
loitering around without doing anything in school. The effectiveness of this program can be
seen as the discipline cases are decrease.

Closure
In conclusion, teachers should be more aware of their responsibility in shaping the
pupils. Teachers shall portray high level of professionalism in carrying out their duty. And for that
to happen, teachers shall increase their knowledge in this profession. They must not only focus
on things inside the classroom, instead teachers must also be aware of the matters that happen
outside the classroom. They also need to have the desire to learn more about this profession.
As professional teachers, they must have passion in teaching while at the same time, they also
do not ignore the significance of guidance and counselling in the development of the pupils. As
a sign of love towards the profession, teachers shall equip themselves with basic knowledge on
the concept of guidance and counselling in teachings which should be beneficial for their own
pupils.

References
Shertzer, B. and Stone, S. C. (1976). Fundamentals of Guidance.

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Amir,A., & Latiff, M. (1984). Guidance and counseling in Malaysian schools:A review and
critique. In Third Asian workshop on child and adolescent development (Vol. 2, pp. 118). Kuala
Lumpur, Malaysia: Universiti Malaysia, Faculty of Education.
UNESCO (1999). Counselling. France; Ag2i Communication.
Mey, D. C. (2004). School Counselling in Malaysia. School Counselling and Guidance in the
Asia Pacific Region; Current Issues and Prospects (pp. 1-23). Seoul: Seoul National University.
See, C. M., & Ng, K.-M. (2010). Counseling in Malaysia: History, Current Status, and Future
Trends. Journal of Counseling & Development, 18-22.
Rao, S. N. (2004). Guidance and Counselling. New Delhi: Discovery Publishing House.