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Following is a question by the Hon Cyd Ho Sau-lan and a reply by the Acting Secretary for Education and Manpower, Mr Matthew Cheung Kin-chung, in the Legislative Council today (Wednesday):
Question:
Regarding the provision of professional psychological counselling to primary and secondary school students in need, will the Government inform this Council:
(a) in respect of a student receiving such service, of the average number of and length of meetings that he and his parents have with counsellors each month at present;
(b) of the number of students who needed but did not receive psychological counselling in the past three years, together with the reasons for not providing them with such service; and
(c) whether there is any plan to increase the number of counsellors; if so, what the details are?
Reply:
Madam President,
(a) The Psychological Services Section of the Education Department mainly provides the following counselling and psychological services:
* psychological, social and educational assessment for students
* counselling, study habit training and social skills training
* counselling for parents individually or in groups
* screening and assessment for junior primary students and referral for appropriate remedial and counselling services
* professional support and consultation services to schools on crisis management, casework management and promotion of guidance work
* teacher training and development
The nature of counselling work is not only remedial, but also preventive and developmental, the primary aim of which is to promote the personal development and learning of school children. In so far as casework is concerned, the Department's educational psychologists and educational counsellors deal with all cases referred from the front-line counselling personnel, including Student Guidance Officers/Student Guidance Teachers in primary schools and Guidance Teachers and School Social Workers in secondary schools. Case referrals mainly involve students with learning, emotional or behavioural problems. The mode of follow-up support services comprises individual or small group counselling, assessment service, case conference and discussion with the school teachers or guidance personnel on effective management and follow-up support services. The time spent on interviewing students and parents is primarily for the purpose of diagnosing the problem and offering counselling and more importantly, recommending suitable follow-up services to be undertaken by school teachers, student guidance officers and social workers, who can in their regular contacts with the students, ensure the provision of more effective and longer-term support.
The length of time that an educational psychologist devotes to a student and his parents depends very much on the nature of the case and the mode of follow-up support services. On average, each student and his parents will receive 15 hours of service, spread over a period of several months. As regards the more serious cases, four to five follow-up sessions may be arranged within a month.
(b) The Education Department is able to provide psychological services to all cases referred. In the past three years, the number of students served in the form of casework support was 5 070. On the preventive side, the 'Early Identification Programme' run by the Psychological Services Section also provided 22 300 primary school pupils with detailed assessment service on their learning abilities as well as recommendations on the suitable educational and guidance services.
Other than the Psychological Services Section of the Education Department, major school sponsoring bodies are also funded by the Government to employ their own educational psychologists. At present, the sponsoring bodies of 102 aided secondary schools and 26 special schools, practical schools and skills opportunity schools have employed educational psychologists to provide counselling services.
(c) There are still ten vacant educational psychologist posts in the Education Department and we are continuing with the recruitment work to fill these posts. To attract more prospective candidates to join the profession, we are reviewing the appointment requirements and grade structure of educational psychologist. We will monitor closely the manpower supply situation and the demand for psychological services to determine whether there is any need to create additional educational psychologist posts.
End/Wednesday, November 11, 1998
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