A recent article by Rice Media ‘’The Curious Case about School Counsellor Trauma’’ raises an important question – is it sufficient that MOE ensures there are counselors in schools, no matter how well trained and/or equipped they are in dealing with the needs of the students?

The article featured two students who were brave enough to share their stories, both of whom spoke about the lack of confidentiality and bedside manner employed by these counsellors when interacting with the students that come to them for help. And the end result was more trauma being inflicted on these teenagers on the cusp of becoming young adults who are grappling with issues of identity, and self-worth. 

While it is heartening that MOE has realized the problem of mental health in schools, and have tried to address this by finding a solution in the form of teacher counsellors and peer support leaders in school, the level of preparation offered to these individuals is woefully lacking. These ‘officers’ are given minimal training to be able to offer a listening ear, or to escalate the case to a trained individual so that the child receives adequate help. 

Peer Support Leaders are children themselves, often ‘high achievers’ or ‘school leaders’ who are held up on a pedestal as shining examples of how to do life as a teenager. This choice has been made despite reputable studies showing that high achievers are not spared the trauma of teenage ‘angst’, as they tread the fine line of not disappointing the adults around them and being true to their individual growth.

As the article rightly asks, if trained counsellors are the cause of further trauma, what then are the odds that these alternative forms of ‘counsellors’ will be effective?

Another question that occurred to me as I read the RICE article – why isn’t MOE addressing the factors that are the main cause of the trauma? The article states that Singapore tops the charts in terms of prevalence of mental health issues among youth 15-25 yrs of age. The constant pressure to perform and behave in a certain way from a young age affects the self-confidence and self-worth of our children. And this is before the questions of identity and sexuality are thrown into the mix. 

At EveryChild.SG’s recent event on the 27th November 2024, ‘Reimagining Primary Education’, Prionka Ray (Psychotherapist and Positive Parenting Coach) talked about how it always felt like she was catching her clients as they were falling off the delivery belt by the time she met them. If we already recognize that there is a mental health issue, why aren’t we addressing the core of what’s causing these issues? Why aren’t we prioritizing the steps needed to reduce the number of children who need additional help?

Much of what EveryChild.SG recommends is to address the increasing numbers of children traumatized by an education system that no longer serves the holistic development needs of primary school children, much less the skills they will need in the global workplace. 

It is time we stopped and took a long hard look at the state of child well-being nationally, and start making it a priority by:

1. Resourcing schools with better-trained support professionals and/or registered allied health professionals (e.g. clinical psychologists, occupational therapists, etc). We’ve seen that “school counsellors” with only 8 months of training can cause more harm than good in many cases, what more the recent initiative to rope in teachers and students to manage mental health issues;
   
2. Updating the current primary education syllabus to one that is focused on 21st Century Competencies, through working in teams and application of concepts, instead of one that is focused on rote learning and taking written tests with model answers; and
   
3. Finding a more accurate outcome measure of Primary Education than the current PSLE. We have spent so long quoting Singapore’s top position in the PISA rankings as a sign that our education system is doing well. Have we stopped to enquire how much of this ‘stellar performance’ is actually due to the $1.7 billion private tuition industry (as at 2019) which typically teaches in much smaller classes.

What do you think?

Written by Aarathi Arumugam, COO, EveryChild.SG