For most pupils a guidance counsellor is "like something from the X Files, something you heard about but had never seen," the TUI congress was told yesterday.
Mr Tony Deffely, guidance counsellor and past president of the TUI, said that before the "infamous cuts of 1983" any school with 250 pupils or more was entitled to a guidance counsellor.
Speaking on a motion that all schools should have access to ex-quota remedial teachers and guidance counsellors, Mr Deffely said at present there were 545 full-time counsellors for a student population of 371,184. "If we were to apply that figure to the 250 provision we would find that, working on pre-cut figures, there ought to be 1,485 counsellors," he added.
"In addition to the vast increases in productivity which teachers have given in recent years they have been forced to carry this additional burden."
Mr Deffely said teachers were reaching outside their own area of specialisation to help pupils, but this was "deskilling" the guidance counsellor. "It is a disgrace that we have to oversee the short-changing of a generation in the midst of plenty . . . We in the TUI believe that every student in our schools has the right to unhurried skilled guidance to help them find their way in personal, social, vocational and educational terms. The Minister should listen to the chorus of pleas and reverse the cut."
Proposing the motion, an Offaly delegate, Ms Marion Drennan, said "in just eight weeks quite a number of 16-year-olds will leave our schools with reading ages of eight or nine, without the literacy and numeracy skills necessary to cope with ordinary everyday life".
The reasons included poor home circumstances, inability to cope and lack of stimulation. But the first important reason, said Ms Drennan, "is the fact that the Department of Education and Science, in its wisdom, has decided that students in small schools have no need of a remedial teacher".
The TUI president, Ms Alice Prendergast, said teenagers were finding their lives increasingly stressful, with a recent survey concluding that the single biggest cause of stress was exams.
"The need for guidance has grown at an alarming rate in recent years. The rapid change in society, the increasing rate of family breakdown, the increased pressure for points, teenage drink and drug abuse, increased levels of sexual activity coupled with suicide rates, depression and bereavement have increased that need."
She said 25,000 students had used the change-of-mind facility in the CAO last year. "Our students require counsellors as well as computers." The motion asking that all schools have access to ex-quota remedial and guidance counsellors was passed.
A motion asking that the results of Junior, Leaving and National Council for Vocational Awards examinations be issued directly to the home address of the candidate and a copy only sent to the school was also passed.
Ms Delemar Keane, a Louth delegate, said the early issuing of the Junior Certificate results would cut down on disruption in September, both in terms of hype and the rearrangement of classes.
Insurance policies for teachers and their cars while on school business was sought in a motion. Mr Jim Dorney, general secretary, said there was an increasing problem with teachers' cars being vandalised. The motion was carried.
