APPENDICES
2.2 The state of School Psychological Services
2.2.5 Components of School Psychological Services in South Africa
2.2.5.1 School curriculum
What are the components of School Psychological Services? How are they offered in schools?
And, of what benefit are they to learners?
the concept of Guidance and Counselling services – which evolved from a pastoral programme – is comparatively-speaking still very novel in Southern Africa. Education authorities in the Southern African region have only recently realized in a vague way that Guidance and Counselling should form an integral part of the education system of the country. According to Euvrard (1996) and Marais (1988), “guidance and counselling services in South Africa have had a chequered history, and while White, Coloured, and Indian education departments had developed structures and programmes over the past 20 to 40 years, guidance was only introduced as a separate non-examinable school subject in the Black junior and senior secondary schools in 1981”.
Mashile (2000) contends that education support services (ESS) – which includes Guidance and Counselling – was not adequately catered for in the past. Before 1994 ESS (Appendix P) were plagued by the following inadequacies:
ESS was viewed as an add-on to the curriculum, hence services were marginalized resulting in a lack of status and resource allocation;
The governance of ESS was fragmented. Guidance and Counselling, and Specialised education were administered by the Department of Education, School health by the Department of Health. Each racial group had its own ESS provision. Consequently, there was a lack of administrative and professional coordination between the services provided;
There was lack of national clarity and focus on the nature and orientation of services;
Parents and learners seldom had a choice between mainstream and specialized education, with the result that decision-making about learners’ specialized needs and services was centralized and non-participatory;
There were inequalities and inconsistencies, particularly between the different racially segregated departments. For Whites, ESS was provided for in clinics available through district offices. While ESS for Indians and Coloureds was also provided for in district clinics, a far less developed service existed for them than for Whites. Africans received minimal, if any, access to services. NGO’s were largely responsible for providing services to Africans (Blacks), and
Finally, where ESS existed, it was conceptualized and operated predominantly in terms of cure rather than prevention. Services were geared toward towards learners with particular academic, psychological, social or physical needs or problems, rather than towards health promotion and optimal social, psychological and academic development of all (Mashile, 2000, pp. 88-89).
A review of the guidance literature in South Africa reveals that not much has been written about the development of guidance programmes, their implementation and evaluation. Nevertheless, Guidance and Counselling in South Africa has undergone transformation from the beginning of the 21stcentury to today. Schools generally had a specialist Guidance teacher with a psychology background, who besides teaching the prescribed syllabus to various grades also had a crucial role of counselling learners with problems of a psychology nature. The services were grounded in psychometric assessments as they consisted mainly of aptitude and interest testing administered by school psychologists in standards five, eight and ten. Nicholas and Cooper (1990), say that
“In support for the apartheid system, it becomes the responsibility of the psychologist, and the role of guidance counsellor, to ensure that these expectations are achieved.
While school guidance programmes for white learners are judged to be an important means of the South African Government’s stated objectives for guidance programmes for White students was moulding the conscience according to the South African
guard its identity. The primary aim of guidance services in white schools was to ensure unquestioning conformity to and inculcating societal values, …guidance services for black students have been appallingly neglected, a reflection perhaps of White authorities’ ambivalence at offering adequate education and guidance to those whom until quite recently, were assumed to be suitable only for menial jobs” (Nicholas
& Cooper, 1990, p. 9)
According to Nicholas and Cooper (1990), guidance which in Black schools consisted of a superficial testing service used for statistical and research purposes rather than as guidance for the students, was introduced as an important educational component in black school after the 1976 riots. As Macleod (2009) puts it, social control was its main purpose as explicit in the provision, and traits such as honesty and responsibility were to be developed whilst values such as time consciousness, dependability, willingness, thoroughness and obedience were stressed.
Instead of assisting individuals to make choices in a manner that helps them to create their own identities, guidance in South African black schools was aimed at manipulation. “Apartheid enforced schools to teach Black children to consider themselves as occupying an inferior place in society, and White children were taught that they were superior and Africans ‘primitive and barbaric’” (Chuenyane, 1990, p. 25). Lockhat and Van Niekerk (2000) say that “because of Bantu education, schools became pits of hopelessness and despair”, and consequently in the 1980s, they became sites of violence and conflict. According to Stead and Watson (1999) the purpose of native education was to make both African and White children believe that they, by nature, have different destinies, hence the curriculum for native education was to retard their intellectual development. The fact that guidance was used by the apartheid government as a tool of oppression – to support and perpetuate the interests of the state through a fundamentally normative function of ‘guiding’ students into their roles as future citizens, roles that were clearly
racialised (Macleod, 2009) – led to its stigmatisation. Deliberately, guidance was under- resourced and through retrenchments, guidance teachers were forced to leave as their expertise was in a non-examinable subject (Rooth, 2005). Hence, “black learners viewed guidance with suspicion as it was introduced at a time when the government was using whatever means were at its disposal to control the political unrest in the township schools” (Euvrard, 1996).
According to the National Education Policy Investigation of 1992 (p. 20), School Guidance was designed to bring learners “into contact with the real world in such a way that they are taught life-skills and survival techniques which enable them to direct themselves completely within the educational, personal and social spheres and the world of work”. It was introduced in secondary schools to meet the needs of adolescents by focusing on improving academic performance, and implementing services to help learners solve their behavioural and social problems, and addressing their career needs (Mbuyazi, 2002; Gladding, 2000). However, School Guidance was compromised owing to the limited number of trained personnel and its allocation to teachers whose timetables needed a few extra periods filled. This led to guidance being subsumed by examination subjects that were perceived as more important and as having greater status. It is difficult to predict the future of Guidance and Counselling, but education will have to be seen to be meeting the needs of youth, thereby reducing their levels of stress, anxiety and frustration. It is certain that Guidance and Counselling will become even more necessary in future.
According to the core syllabus for Guidance (Department of Education, 1995a), the inclusion of Guidance and Counselling in the school curricula arose as a result of the complexities of a rapidly changing contemporary South Africa which amongst other things resulted in formal
education being called upon increasingly to deal with issues which were previously considered to be within the domain or responsibility of the family. A disintegration of family and community life, challenging of many traditional values, and a growing need for specialist knowledge in many new areas led to the birth of Guidance and Counselling in our schools. Another contributory factor was the fact that parents, especially mothers, were taking up paid employment and working outside homes, creating a situation where children had nobody to look after them. Schools therefore were charged with the responsibility which otherwise belonged to the families or homes (Department of Education, 1995a, p. 1).
The White Paper on Education and Training of 1995 (Mothata, 2000), was focused on an integrated approach to education and training, an outcomes-based approach, lifelong learning, access to education and training for all, equity, redress and transforming the legacies of the past.
All these have implications for School Psychological Services. However, it is the South African Schools Act 84 of 1996 which made the mandate more explicit to provide a uniform system for the organization, governance and funding of schools, establish minimum and uniform norms and standards for the provision of education at schools, and ensure the provision of quality education across the school system (Mda & Mothata, 2000, p. 10). This presupposes the equal provision of Psychological Services (including equal provision of Guidance and Counselling services) in public schools and the establishment of School Governing Bodies (SGB’s) as a model of school- community partnership, aimed at addressing learners’ behavioural problems in a democratic manner and ensure academic success and overall well-being of learners. Current changes in the education system are meant to meet this ideal. However, according to Barry Streek (Mail &
Guardian, January 11-17, 2002), inequalities of the past still exist in our education system,
producing winners and losers. “The reality is that after nearly fourteen years of democratic rule, gross inequalities – largely racially and poverty-based – continue to exist in the public school system”. White schools have all the resources and Black schools have meagre resources to meet the basic needs of learners.
Guidance and Counselling and career or vocational guidance were subjects in some schools prior to curriculum transformation and these aspects have been absorbed in altered configurations into Life Orientation (Macleod, 2009; Stead & Watson 2006, Mbuyazi, 2002). The NCESS/NCSNET Commission Report of 1977 had recommended that the subject ‘guidance’ be replaced with Life Orientation (including Life Skills), which should be offered at all levels, and that guidance teachers be reoriented to offer the new learning area. The commission also postulated an intersectoral approach be used in the development and provision of life skills education.
The RNCS is the one document that can be credited with the introduction of Life Orientation as a learning area in South African schools. Its introduction sounded the death-knell on School Guidance and Counselling and signalled the birth of Life Orientation as a compulsory school subject or learning area. According to Rooth (2005), Life Orientation could so readily contain the vestiges of past guidance’s value-laden curricula and, since it was the vehicle for some of the nefarious policies and practices of the pre-democratic South Africa, its inclusion in Life Orientation needs to be circumspect, informed, critical and well-considered.
Gibson and Mitchell (1990) maintain that guidance services should be aimed at all school levels, are primarily preventive in nature and should include the following services: learner inventory
service, information service, counselling service, placement service, and follow-up and evaluation service. Gibson and Mitchell (1990) emphasize the importance of Guidance and Counselling programmes when they say that these programmes can contribute more effectively when
“School Guidance and Counselling programmes are designed to serve the developmental and adjustment needs of all youth, and learner guidance is viewed as a process that is continuous throughout the child’s formal education” (Gibson and Mitchell, 1990, p. 37)
Currently, Psychological Services (including guidance services) in South African schools is the prime responsibility of educational psychologists based in district offices who visit schools upon invitation by school principals and/or Life Orientation educators, especially in the event of a problem (see Appendix J). The sources referred to above discuss Psychological Services (viz.
Guidance and Counselling) without necessarily looking at and addressing the challenges affecting the delivery of these essential services in South African secondary schools, both urban and rural.
2.2.5.1.2 Life Orientation / Life skills education
Life Orientation as a facet or feature of School Psychological Services came into being through the Education Renewal Strategy (ERS) prior to the 1994 elections. Curriculum transformation altered guidance and counselling into a learning area called Life Orientation which was meant to address the needs and risks associated with adolescent development (Rooth, 2005). The Department of Education decided on the nomenclature because it is inclusive of Life Skills
Education, School Guidance and other aspects of the curriculum such as Religious Education, Health Education, Physical Education, Sexuality Education, Career or Vocational Education and Citizenship Education. Each of the constituents plays an important role in promoting learners’
wellbeing and ensuring their holistic development.
Life Orientation, as the Department of Education (2003b), states, “is the study of the self in relation to others and to society. It applies a holistic approach to learner development as it is concerned with the personal, social, intellectual, emotional, spiritual, motor and physical growth and development of learners, and the way in which these dimensions are interrelated and expressed in life. The focus is the development of self-in-society, and this encourages the development of balanced and confident learners who will contribute to a just and democratic society, a productive economy, and an improved quality of life for all” (Department of Education 2003b, p. 9). Life Orientation is therefore a Learning Area meant to guide and prepare learners for life. It has an interdisciplinary focus as” it draws on and integrates knowledge, values, skills, and processes embedded in disciplines such as Sociology, Psychology, Political Science, Human Movement Science, Labour Studies and Industrial Studies”. That notwithstanding, Life Orientation is mainly a psycho-educational service meant mainly to equip learners with skills to handle life’s challenges. Rooth (2005) indicates that Life Orientation, in effect, aids all learning areas in achieving their outcomes: it enables learners to promote their and others’ health, develop their potential, equip themselves with Life Skills, and be informed decision makers who are goal directed and who willingly interact in the community for the benefit of all.
According to the Department of Education (2003b), “Life Orientation equips learners to engage on personal, psychological, neuron-cognitive, motor, physical, moral, spiritual, cultural, socio- economic and constitutional levels, to respond positively to the demands of the world, to assume responsibilities, and to make the most of life’s opportunities”. Through Life Orientation “learners would know how to exercise their constitutional rights and responsibilities, to respect the rights of others, and to value diversity, health and well-being. Life Orientation promotes knowledge, values, attitudes and skills that prepare learners to respond effectively to the challenges that confront them as well as the challenges they will have to deal with as adults and to play a meaningful role in society and the economy”.
Life Orientation as offered at the Further Education and Training level (high schools) focuses on the diversity of learners as human beings in their totality and: requires learners to identify and confront challenges using acquired knowledge, values, skills, and strategies; prepares learners to be successful by helping them to study effectively and make informed decisions about subject choices, careers, and additional and higher education opportunities; helps learners to exercise their rights, as well as their civic and social responsibilities, in order to contribute to society
“while respecting the rights of others; fosters self-awareness, social competencies and the achievement of a balanced and healthy lifestyle; addresses changes during puberty and adolescence, responsible sexual behaviour, risky adolescent behaviour and attitudes regarding a range of issues including substance abuse, road use, dietary behaviour and personal safety; help learners to make informed decisions about and to nurture personal, community and environmental health; and exposes learners to and encourages them to participate in recreational and physical activities to enhance well-being” (Department of Education, 2003, p. 10).
According to the Department of Education (2003b), “personal well-being is central to fulfilling one’s potential; it enables learners to engage effectively in interpersonal relationships, community life and society”. Many personal and social problems associated with lifestyle choices persist in the FET phase. Personal well-being, as one area of Life Orientation, focuses on self-concept, emotional literacy, social competency and Life Skills. It deals with the realities of peer pressure, factors influencing quality of life, and the dynamics of relationships, as well as preparing learners for a variety of roles (for example, being an employee, leader or a parent). It addresses issues related to the prevention of substance abuse, lifestyle diseases, sexuality, teenage pregnancy and sexually-transmitted infections, including HIV and AIDS. As Theron and Dalzell (2006) point out, Life Orientation can provide the opportunity for young people to talk about their experiences of, and the fears and myths they harbour about, the challenges of adolescence, and also deals with issues such as Human Rights, gender issues, the environment and all forms of violence and abuse. However, Life Orientation does not include counselling services, where learners get to share confidential information with a counsellor.
On the other hand, Life Skills, according to Maree and Ebersöhn (2002, p. 82), is defined as
“education designed to facilitate the practice and reinforcement of psychosocial skills in a culturally and developmentally appropriate way. It contributes to the promotion of personal and social development, the prevention of health and social problems, and the protection of human rights”. They (ibid) define Life Skills as “abilities for adaptive and positive behaviour, that enables individuals to deal effectively with the demands and challenges of everyday life…(they) are those abilities that help to promote mental well-being and confidence in young people as they
face the realities of life”. Rooth (2003) posits that Life Skills as the skills necessary for successful living and learning, enabling people to participate fully in community development and holistic environmental living. Theron and Dalzell (2006, p. 398), on the other hand, define life skills as “non-academic abilities, knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours necessary for successful living and learning and enhance the quality of life and prevent dysfunctional behaviour”.
According to Donald, Lazarus and Lolwana (2002, p.156), life skills promote psychosocial competence (including physical, emotional, and social well-being) and enhance a person’s coping resources and confidence (Donald et al., 2002). For Olivier, Greyling and Venter (1997) Life Skills refer to “the life coping skills consonant with the developmental tasks of the basic human developmental processes, namely those skills necessary to perform the tasks for a given age and sex in the different areas of human development”. They are the ability to cope with important tasks in times of change; the skills to live, to coexist and to survive. Olivier et al., (1997, p. 25) aptly sum up the importance of Life Skills thus: we cannot always build the future for the youth, but we can build the youth for the future. From the aforementioned clarifications, it may be concluded that Life Skills relate to all skills that enable people to adequately handle their life situations and to lead meaningful lives.
Similar to Life Orientation, Life Skills involves personally responsible choices, that is, taking responsibility for one’s own well-being and fulfilment, and assuming rather than avoiding responsibilities. Inadequate Life Skills may be reflected in and may lead to psychological distress. Maree and Ebersöhn (2002, p. 83) contend that Life Skills are not static but processes