Teachers’ overall responsibility should increase

Addressing the conference on training psychological counseling skills in schools for managers, teachers, and collaborators participating in psychological counseling at educational establishments, Mr. Tran Van Dat, Acting Director of the Department of Political Education and Student Affairs under the Ministry of Education and Training, said that high school students are currently facing many problems such as academic pressure, school violence, psychological instability due to the influence of pornography exposure, body shaming and they decided to fight for resolving the problem.

Psychology and counseling in schools is necessary to prevent violence

Therefore, school psychology and counseling is necessary. Psychologists and counselors will work to improve students’ emotional well-being and better understand and overcome social and behavioral challenges, within a school setting.

According to the representative of the Ministry of Education and Training, in recent times, ministries and agencies have implemented many measures but psychological counseling in schools still has many difficulties because of some reasons including the lack of specialized staff on the payroll to give advice to students. Moreover, teachers are not trained to understand students’ emotional development.

Associate Professor Tran Thi Le Thu, a lecturer in the Faculty of Educational Psychology of Hanoi University of Education, said that currently, many teachers do not put themselves in their students' situations but they just guide students based on their own experience, so it is not highly effective in psychological counseling. More importantly, teachers must have the skills to manage their personal emotions; as a result, students will not want to share their stories, or even worse, they will have opposition to the teacher.

In particular, because the education sector is seeing a severe shortage of teachers; hence, many teachers have to work as homeroom teachers, subject teachers and psychological counselors; subsequently, they can easily fall into a state of stress and exhaustion, leading to inappropriate speech and behavior towards students.

Meanwhile, a principal of a secondary school in a central district in Ho Chi Minh City said that many students participating in a fight lack care and education from their families. When school violence occurs, schools have to assume all responsibilities while regular coordination between families and teachers has a high impact on the education of a child.

Ho Chi Minh City is currently the first locality in the country to promulgate a set of criteria named Happy Schools including 18 criteria in 3 groups of standards, in which the criteria aim to build positive relationships in schools based on trust, respect, tolerance, fairness, and adequate physical and mental health of teachers, teaching staff, and students through ensuring working conditions, and being recognized and honored for their roles in a worthy way.

Learning environment must be safe and friendly

Lecturer Dang Thi Huyen Oanh from the Faculty of Social Work at Hanoi University of Education revealed that current social work in schools includes reviewing, detecting risks, intervening and assisting, and supporting students’ development. However, most teachers are not trained in social work, so they cannot evaluate and record all the problems students encounter in order to provide appropriate support.

Homeroom teachers or general teachers in charge of the communist youth unions are responsible for assisting students who are facing difficulties in learning and problems; however, these teachers with limited professional capacity are pressured by work so they hardly do well in their duties.

More than 5,000 leaders of Departments of Education and Training, principals, teachers, and collaborators who provide psychological counseling at elementary, middle, and high schools in 63 provinces and cities across the country participated in an online training session on psychological counseling skills organized online by the Ministry of Education and Training yesterday.

Source: SGGP