More guidance counsellors needed for Ontario students, study finds

We’re living in an age where the terms “arrested development” and “failure to launch” aren’t just titles of television shows and movies, but rather existential crises that face a generation of high school graduates yet to chart a plan moving forward.

Whatever the cause – be it over-parenting, longer lifespans, laziness or simply more available leisure time – it would seem today’s youth are in less of a rush to join the “adult” phase of life.

Not everyone, mind you. Not by a long shot. But living in your parent’s basement while you search for your life’s meaning is certainly more common now than ever before.

And it may have something to do with a lack of guidance at a young age.

A new report from People in Education indicates that an absence of guidance counsellors is a major deficiency in Ontario’s education system.

The report finds that the vast majority of elementary schools have no guidance counsellors, and that the position is understaffed at higher levels.

The findings were based on a survey of nearly 1,200 principals across the province, which suggests that when counsellors do have a chance to engage students, they are most often called on the address the student’s “social-emotional health and well-being,” rather than helping them plan for post-secondary education or chart a career path.

And that’s on the rare occasions students and counsellors are able to connect.

Only 14 per cent of Ontario elementary schools have access to guidance counsellors, and only 10 per cent have a counsellor on staff full time.

Middle years schools – those with grades 7 and 8 – are only slightly better off with 20 per cent access to counsellors.

Secondary schools, in the meantime, have a more hopeful 99 per cent access rate, though some areas are better served than others. For instance, 46 per cent of Northern Ontario schools have only part-time counsellors.

However, the issue in secondary schools isn’t the absence of counsellors but the lack of access to one.

The average ratio of students to guidance counsellors is 391 to 1, which provides students little face time and limits the amount of hands-on support counsellors can offer.

“Ontario has policy in place to support students from kindergarten to grade 12 as they imagine and plan for their futures,” said Annie Kidder, executive director of People for Education.

“This report shows that it may be hard for many schools to fully realize the goals in the policy. The reality on the ground is that ratios of students to guidance counsellors are very high, very few elementary schools have guidance counsellors at all, and it seems that many of them focus most of their time on students well-being and social-emotional needs.”

It is a lofty claim to suggest that more, and more efficient, interaction between students and guidance counsellors would result in any significant improvement, but recent studies have shown that it is likely.

A 2014 article by U.S. economists Scott E. Carrell and Mark Hoekstra, titled “Are school counselors an effective education input?" finds that adding one additional counsellor reduced student misbehaviour, improved focus and increased academic achievement - most notably in male students.

The study found that adding additional counselling resources had a more significant beneficial impact than reducing class sizes.

Indeed, the desperate need for student guidance has been noted by the province. In 2013, Ontario’s ministry of education established a new policy to streamline the matter.

Part of the strategy involved establishing a “pathway portfolio” at a young age, which was to be revisited through grade school up to graduation.

People for Education explains that this plan, from grade 7 to the end of their time in public school, aims to help students target a desired career and keep them on track. But the mission relies on access to those counsellors, and a lack of staff at lower levels undermines the entire process.

The People for Education study make some pretty straight-forward recommendations: Better access to counsellors, equal access to counsellors and ensuring counsellors are able to focus on future planning, not just present-day social welfare.

It’s not likely to end the prevalence of slow-to-grow-up graduates, there are larger endemic issues behind the phenomenon, but more access to career- and life-planning assistance will help those on the fringes.