Aligning the Ethiopian Education Policy and School Support Practices in Secondary Schools

Abstract

This policy brief is concerned with the current education policy of Ethiopia – the 2023 education and training policy of Ethiopia. The service has been offered in Ethiopian schools since 1970s. It was introduced in to schooling and the education system in general with a conviction that it would deliver psychosocial support to students and thereby enabling them to be successful academically. However, it was not given proper attention by policy makers. It was realized that because of policy ignoring of guidance and counseling the provision would not be effective in delivering services to students, the profession unable to have its own job description guideline and the professionals could not have the opportunity to have institutional placement in the administrative offices at federal level or regional levels. All these problems, which are the outcomes of policy limitation, brought impairment in achieving quality of education, which was one of the objectives of the policy. Thus, we recommend to the ministry of education that for school counseling services to be effective and contribute for quality of education the current education and training policy of Ethiopia has to be reformed with serious consideration of the recognition of guidance and counseling. The improved policy has to also indicate providing counseling to students is mandatory to schools and right to students and for the professional school counselors it has to set direction for the designing of national job description guideline that can indicate the rights and responsibilities of the professionals and measurements of its effectiveness.