Suicide cases alarm top education exec

By URIEL QUILINGUING
Contributing Editor

THE education department has classified mental health as an emerging concern that must be seriously addressed even as its head sounded alarm bells over the spate of suicide cases involving teachers and learners.

“The need [to hire guidance counselors] is becoming more urgent at this time,” Education Secretary Leonor Briones told a news conference Saturday to cap the World Teachers’ Day celebration in Cagayan de Oro.

But the Department of Education could not attract licensed guidance counselors due to the relatively low pay of P20,754, the same starting salary level of newly hired teachers, when a masters degree is required by law for licensure examinees. And, they are also required to hurdle the licensure examinations for teachers.

Worse, the government needs 46,956 guidance counselors for all Deped basic education schools and yet there are only 3,220 licensed guidance and counseling professionals, hence a shortage of 43,739, according to the Philippine Guidance and Counseling Association.

“It’s my fourth year now and when I am asked on mental [health], I always say we have difficulty hiring guidance counselors, and there is a suggestion to consider psychology graduates instead, while we continue training our teachers on guidance and counseling,” Briones said.

This is so, she said, because not many are going into the guidance and counseling profession although there many schools offering the course.

She further said that although not all issues on mental health come out in newspapers since parents do not want their kids and themselves exposed yet she is well informed on mental health cases of students and mentors.

“I know classroom teachers see it, they know of changes in the learners’ behavior but teachers themselves may also have difficulty coping, for all we know, even officials,” Briones said.

Mental health issues, she said, may be linked to advances in technologies since the present generation is wired to them, allowing ready access to information, and the situation deprives them of interpersonal relationships. 

Ideally, the education agency is supposed to employ the services of one guidance counselor for every 500 elementary and high school learners.

In a Suicide Rate by Country that the World Population Review released in August this year, the Philippines ranked 163^rd among 183 countries with a suicide rate of 3.2 per 100,000 population or involving 3,413 cases of suicide. The same report indicated males having higher suicide rate of 4.3 than females of 2.0. In real numbers, the 3.2 rate meant

Aside from the latest, suicide rates of the Philippines were on uptrend: 3.2 in 2018, 2.1 in 2016 and 1.8 in 2000.           

Republic Act 9258, otherwise known as the Guidance and Counseling Act of 2004, seeks to professionalize the practice of guidance and counseling, and created the Professional Regulation Board of Guidance and Counseling which is under administrative and supervision of the Professional Regulation Commission.

Four months ago, Sen. Sherwin Gatchalian filed a measure in the Senate seeking for an amendment of RA 9258, specifically Section 13, by relaxing the requirements for those who apply for license, thus enable Deped to hire more guidance counselors.