From Leaving CertiFiCate to Leaving SChooL a Longitudinal Study ...

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From Leaving Certificate to Leaving School
Other students in Park Street felt that when they told their guidance
counsellor what they wanted to do, they seemed to focus on the amount
of points needed to do the course rather than ways in which the student
could reach their goal:
They ask you what you want to do and then you just say whatever,
say you wanted to do engineering and then they just tell you ‘oh you
need so many points for this’ and I know that like. (Park Street,
boys’ school, mixed intake)
In this boys’ school, students described how their guidance counsellor
seemed to advise them all to do the same course:
Like at the start of the year, our first career guidance teacher, she
brought us in one at a time. We did an aptitude test last year and then
she brought us in to discuss the results and like out of say five lads,
me, him and I don’t know who else, she told us all to do health and
safety. (Park Street, boys’ school, mixed intake)
Other students felt that their guidance counsellor focussed on careers that
few of them were interested in and presented these options in an overly
positive light:
She showed us something on a career probably no one was interested
in and like made it out to be the best career in the world.
The best career going. We watched a video for one day about being a
bar man like. (Wattle Street, boys’ school, mixed intake)
Students also found that their guidance counsellor lacked time and understanding
when students did not know what they wanted to do:
There’s such a rush on the man like.
Throwing careers at you, do you want to do this, okay would you
like to do that.
Then he kind of gets real angry.
Oh angry, if you don’t like a college. If you don’t like a college now,
there’s war. (Fig Lane, coed school, middle-class intake)