School counselling should be made an integral part of the curriculum.
Teachers need to be trained to identify students who are having issues, and help address it before it leads to behavioural issues, such as school fights.
The Evangelical Lutheran Church of PNG’s non-formal school coordinator, Duaro Embi, believes there are no good or bad people; just people who are caught in situations and try to make the most of it.
The same principle applies to students.
Challenges at home – whether financial issues, domestic violence, abuse, separation or divorce – significantly affect students’ performance in school, including their behaviour.
Embi, who has been running the school-based counsellors’ training since 2015, said while principals may want to remove these “bad apples”, he teaches teachers and chaplains to do the opposite.
“School counselling is an integral part of the school because that’s where the young human beings are gathering,” he said. “So there has to be fair support – just like any academic lessons – counselling should have the same attention.
“So, the counsellor’s duty is to maintain the students’ attendance and wellbeing so that they perform according to the expectation of the school.
“We cannot train the next generation if we have 50 percent of them coming out on the street and only 50 percent going up the ladder and gradually, only 5 or 10 percent end up getting what they want and the rest is back on the street and into the community.”
Embi, who is the 2023 Momase region’s Men of Honour ambassador and ‘Unsung Hero’, said this is why they have been trying to get the education departments to realise the importance of counselling in schools and assist in terms of logistics or creating a paid position in every school.