Guidance and Counseling / Learner Support
Guidance and Counseling / Learner Support
This domain tests whether you can support a learner's academic, career and personal development within your competence and the law. Items ask you to distinguish guidance from counselling, choose a service, or respond ethically to a disclosure.
Core rules
- Guidance vs counselling: guidance is broad, preventive, informational and often group-based, for all learners; counselling is a therapeutic relationship, usually individual or small-group, for specific concerns.
- Service areas: orientation, appraisal (tests, records, observation), information (educational and occupational), counselling, placement, follow-up, referral.
- Types: educational (study skills, subject choice), vocational/career (pathways, TVET, subject combinations), personal-social (relationships, self-esteem, bereavement).
- Ethics: confidentiality with limits (risk of harm to self or others, abuse, court order), informed consent, non-judgemental listening, competence boundaries, secure records, referral rather than amateur therapy.
- Ghanaian legal frame: Children's Act, 1998 (Act 560) - protection and the best interests of the child; Persons with Disability Act, 2006 (Act 715) and the 2015 Inclusive Education Policy - reasonable accommodation for learners with disabilities; report suspected abuse to the head, GES, Social Welfare or DOVVSU.
- Referral network: head teacher, school counsellor, health service, social welfare, GES special education officers, NGOs.
Worked example
'A JHS 1 learner who was in the top five has slipped to the bottom third, is withdrawn, and has stopped eating at school.' Reasoning: this is not simply a lazy learner - it calls for appraisal (attendance records, class teacher's observation, a private conversation), support within your role, and referral if the disclosure suggests abuse, neglect or a health problem. Confidentiality covers the details, but the duty to protect overrides it.
Traps that cost marks
- Treating counselling as advice-giving or moralising.
- Promising absolute confidentiality before you know what will be disclosed.
- Trying to handle abuse or mental-health concerns alone instead of referring.
- Confusing career guidance with choosing a career for the learner.