Recently, the People for Education released its 2013 annual report on Ontario’s Publicly Funded Schools. It reports that the average ratio of students to guidance counselors in secondary school is 371 to 1. It also indicates that only 26% of schools with Grades 7 and 8 have a guidance counselor on staff. Of course, these statistics are discouraging, especially when one considers the large time-commitment guidance counselors devote to students dealing with various forms of bullying, and to those with substance abuse or mental health issues. Ultimately, public school guidance counselors have little or no time to help students in need of assistance with education and career planning, an activity that is becoming increasingly recognized as a key factor in a student’s long-term success and fulfillment. In fact, a very recent Ipsos Reid/CERIC (Canadian Education and Research Institute for Counseling) survey found that 71% of adult Canadians would try to get more help with professional career planning than they did initially. Moreover, 41% regret not having done so when they were in school. More specifically, two-thirds of adult Canadians (65%) strongly agree that the more satisfied you are with your career, the more likely you are to be happier in life, overall. Over nine-in-ten, or 93% of adult Canadians agree that the more satisfied you are with your career, the more likely you are to have greater overall health, with 57% agreeing strongly that there is a connection between career satisfaction and overall health. Similarly, almost all (96%) agree that career satisfaction is directly linked to overall happiness in life.
Despite these compelling statistics, the Ontario Ministry of Education has imposed further cuts to the public school sector. This means that the student-to-guidance counselor ratios are not likely to decrease. So, where do today’s high-school-aged students go for proper guidance counseling? The answer to this question may come from the experiences of their parents. Where did they go for education and career advice? While 85% turned to their own parents, only 52% of them actually received the necessary help in this area from this source. There may be many reasons why parents are reluctant to help their children in this area. Most of them don’t feel qualified to help, while others tend to avoid becoming involved for fear of a confrontation. Instead, the source from which adult Canadians most often received much-needed assistance was a professional mentor. In fact, 69% of Canadian adults have turned to a mentor for education and career assistance and reported them to be most helpful.
Unlike one’s parents, professional mentors are qualified people who do not have a personal stake in students’ futures. This means that they can offer all of their expertise objectively, without bias. Among the adult Canadians surveyed by Ipsos-Reid, 60% reported they would “use or even need such a service”; two-in-ten (22%) reported being “very certain” of this. Also, as they reflect on their own careers and past experience, 84% say that a professional career counseling program that includes one-on-one career counseling or coaching, resume-building, and interview training, would be valuable, and 34% reported that such a program would be “very valuable”.
One other very important factor to consider is that there are so many more options today than in any previous generation. Aside from deciding whether to attend a public, private, or independent school, there are also numerous programs within each system, such as the International Baccalaureate, or Advanced Placement. Consequently, there are numerous decisions to be made that require professional expertise, and if you’re unable to find it at school, you’re next best option, according to adult Canadians, is a private service.