A bill passed by the legislature today is to increase the number of school counselors and their compensation in response to recent school safety incidents.
The changes to the Student Guidance and Counseling Act (學生輔導法) — the first in a decade — passed the third reading today.
In addition to increasing the number of counselors and their compensation, the bill is to also implement a three-tier counseling system.
Photo: Rachel Lin, Taipei Times
The changes are in response to school safety incidents and inadequate numbers of available counselors for students.
The Education and Culture Committee finished reviewing the amendments on July 8, followed by discussions between political parties.
The full bill was sent to the Legislative Yuan for its second and third readings today.
The act requires that student centers have administrative staff, professional counselors and directors, with the director having prior counseling experience.
It also requires school authorities to set aside sufficient budgets for these centers and annually meet with local and central government officials to review and adjust their operational strategy.
The Legislative Yuan also passed an accompanying resolution mandating that the Ministry of Education draft a framework to establish counselors in schools below high school.
The resolution requires that this new framework reference the Ministry of Health and Welfare’s qualification requirements for social workers, including starting salaries.
The bill also establishes student counseling advisory committees, of which at least half the members must not be school administrators or personnel.
Following the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, the counselors are allowed to provide counseling to minors with the minor’s consent, even without the consent of the minor’s legal guardian.
The act allows for officials to regulate division of labor between teachers, guidance counselors and professional counselors to ensure transdisciplinary collaboration.
The act also regulates on-the-job training for first-time guidance and professional counselors, requiring at least 36 hours of preparatory training and 18 hours of in-school training. For directors, these are 18 hours and 12 hours respectively.
School staff and principals also require three hours of in-service training per school year.
Schools are required to keep track of students receiving support.
Student counseling centers in each administrative area are to have one full-time professional guidance counselor on staff if they have 20 or fewer subordinate schools, while those with 21 or more are to employ one full-time professional guidance counselor for every 20 schools, they say.
Each center is to employ one full-time professional guidance counselor for every 4,500 to 5,000 students in their administrative area, subject to change considering case loads and special circumstances.
This would add 603 school guidance counselors to elementary and junior-high schools, 192 professional counselors to the centers and 216 professional counselors to universities, the education ministry previously estimated.
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