Student’s Counseling and Student’s Dilemma during Pandemic:
What do you think is the role of student counseling during the pandemic?
The role of a student’s counselor is not limited to work closely with students but it deals with the association with the educators and parents as well. The counselor usually provides one-on-one guidance to the students, listening to their concerns and let the students take decisions wisely observing all the prospects of life and prosper in academics. The counselor needs to be more ‘proactive’, especially during the pandemic when the whole world has tripped, it has also collapsed the education system as well. The students are trying to cope up with the deep dilemma of learning when they have great pressure of handling the courses via online instructions and assessments. The students might feel uncertain, get afraid, offended, and anxious which is normal in such situations. In this scenario, the responsibility of the counselor becomes greater to support them in these unsettling times and direct them to improve their behavior patterns, remove the psychological limitations, cope up with the social problem and help them avoid being frantic.
The dilemma of Students:
The counselor might bully the student, that’s what some students believe in. The students from elementary schools to Graduation College are going through mental and physical exhaustion which leads them to cynicism and emotional detachment from the studies and work. During the pandemic, remote work and online studies have broken student’s social cognitive involvement as well. They feel overburdened because of high demand of grades, lesser control over the school’s / college’s situation, and not much social support. The student’s dilemma needs to be catered seriously because it can leave an adverse impact not only on their education but their future performance related to work as well.
What is the reason for this dilemma or burnout?
The reason for this burnout among students can be, because of more competition-related studies. Although, there have always been a tough competition for the students who are trying harder to attain future success, but without any support, working very hard would instill negativity in their wellbeing and it can put them in a very dangerous situation. In some situations, the students get fatigued, more anxious, stay depressed, lose appetite, and develop anger, in other cases, students might attempt suicide. In India 1 out of every 10 students going through a grave dilemma, often commits suicide. In that case, student counselors play a vigorous part in your life.
“It doesn’t matter how slow you go, as long as you don’t stop.” Confucius
Responsibilities of Counselor during or post-pandemic:
Is it easy to handle the complexities during this unsettling period?
It’s sometimes getting really difficult to handle stressful situations, when they have fear of getting penalized for not performing well academically or not paying much attention in the online classes. Some students, just out of frustration, adopt illegal ways to achieve success and a better future. In this case, the student’s counselor needs to be more skillful, compassionate, and more communicative and must play a mediating role between the student, his guardians, and the teachers. The counselor must have enough patience and a pair of listening ears that might motivate the students to stay on the right path.
Here, I’m going to discuss some core responsibilities of the counselor during or after this time of seclusion:
- The counselor must use digital technology to give online, 24/7 support to the students. Social media plays an important role to enhance counseling among students.
- There must be collaborative efforts of the teachers, school authorities, and counselors to help to resolve student’s issues in a way that it becomes easy for them (the students) to reach their goal.
- The counselor must be constructive, who’s keen on the student’s progress not only academically but sociology and psychologically as well.
- Show more concern than the usual days, go to the root cause of the problem, and resolve the problem within time.
- They must have enough experience of dealing with students having different states of mind and must be sincere with the profession to assist the students accordingly.
Difficulties of Counselor Increases:
Pandemic has increased the difficulty of the student counseling agencies and student counselors as well. The counselor has to act like a therapist, psychologist, psychiatrist, and social worker too with different students at different levels. They have to deal with some very challenging cases and at the same time, they have to make extra efforts to make people believe validated, acknowledged, and satisfied, which can be very complicated.
The multi-cultural competency which includes race, socio-economic conditions, and cultural background can limit a counselor’s competency; because at times students don’t want to open up completely about the problem they are going through, and sometimes they are unaware of the reason for the dilemma. It is observed in research nearly 50% of school students had to look for a remote counselor because of the negative impact the pandemic left on their minds. This percentage can help understanding the adverse effect of the pandemic on students’ minds either it is related to academic, behavior, emotional, or social pressure.
Some comprehensive ways of counseling:
- The counselor must explore the in-depth methods to counsel the student. In Pakistan, where the education standards are set low already, just need a proper counseling service not only for students but for the teachers too; to improve their education standards during and even after the pandemic.
- The counselor must be aware of various aspects of counseling like career counseling and grief counseling have the difference. Sometimes therapy works but at graduation or post-graduation level students need to be dealt with the ‘practica’ which will allow the counselor to observe the student’s behavior and judge emotional intelligence.
- When behavioral and cognitive theory fails, it is required to go with the humanistic theory to determine the subjective feeling and use those feelings as a remedy for healing.
- After humanistic theory, there comes the integrative theory the counselors prefer to use the technique of analyzing student’s mental health needs with various perspectives but it focuses less on finding the cure. Being a student’s counselor it is important to stay focus on the subject matter or the students with the dilemma.
- Group counseling would be another best choice during remote work. It helps the counselor to bring together the students facing similar problems ‘online’ and solve the problem accordingly. It would help resolve the conflict in an easy peasy way.
When it comes to education, the USA and Europe prefer to bring new methods and techniques to ease student’s life. They keep on trying and working on effective online teaching methods and counseling services. Like these progressive countries, India and Pakistan must also improve their education system and provide more exposure and scope of counseling, so that students can excel in their professional and personal lives.
