A FEW MONTHS ago, a DepEd teacher friend quietly told me about a student who had suddenly stopped participating in class. The grades slipped. The absences piled up. The classmates noticed but did not know what to do. The teacher wanted to help but was already juggling lesson plans, reports, remedial classes, parent concerns, and committee assignments. In another era, that child might have been referred immediately to a guidance counselor. Instead, the concern joined a growing queue of worries waiting for attention. That story is neither dramatic nor unusual. In many public — even private — schools, it is simply Tuesday. That is why the DepEd’s plan to hire 15,000 school counselors and counselor associates is not just another staffing announcement. It may be one of the most important education reforms in years.
The numbers paint a worrying picture. EDCOM 2 has long pointed to the shortage of guidance counselors, with some serving thousands of learners at a time. At one point, the ratio was estimated at roughly one counselor for every 14,000 students. Yet schools are expected to respond to everything from bullying and mental health concerns to family conflict and career confusion.
What makes this even more concerning is that today’s learners have endless access to information but limited access to guidance. Social media can answer questions quickly, but it cannot always help young people make sense of their choices and struggles. That student needs perspective. A child being bullied online does not need another motivational quote. That child needs someone trained to listen, assess, intervene, and connect. Guidance counseling has never been about giving advice alone. At its best, it helps people make sense of themselves.
The urgency becomes even clearer when viewed alongside the country’s learning crisis. Recent EDCOM 2 data showed that 1.3 million Grade 11 learners struggle with reading comprehension, with many operating at frustration levels where understanding texts becomes extremely difficult. Perhaps even more sobering is that only about four out of every 1,000 graduating senior high school students reach proficient learning levels. Behind those numbers are real young people whose struggles often extend beyond academics alone. Learning difficulties rarely exist in isolation. Behind weak academic performance may be poverty, family stress, trauma, poor mental health, hunger, uncertainty, or lack of motivation. A student who cannot focus because of domestic conflict may appear lazy. A child carrying depression may be mistaken for being disinterested. A learner worried about where the next meal will come from may find algebra or grammar the least urgent concern in life. Education is ultimately about human beings, not just competencies. Sometimes the barrier to learning is not cognitive. It is emotional.
My own work as a registered guidance counselor and educator has repeatedly shown me that students often reveal their deepest concerns in the most ordinary moments. Not during formal counseling sessions. Not during assemblies. Sometimes it happens after class, during a school activity, over a milkshake in the canteen, or while waiting for a parent. I remember learners who initially came to ask about course choices but eventually spoke about family separation, self-doubt, grief, or fear. The career question was merely the door. The real concern was inside the room. This reality echoes findings from our study on Junior High School students in Iloilo City, where career guidance emerged as the highest perceived counseling need, followed closely by personal-social concerns (Lagon et al, 2022). Students are not asking only what job they should take. Many are also asking, often silently, who they are becoming. (To be continued)/PN
