Ciarán Cannon (Galway East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I propose to take Questions Nos. 7, 21 and 28 together.

The surveys cited by Deputy McConalogue focused on guidance counsellors and, in particular, on the time they spend in a one-to-one setting giving career guidance and student counselling. Guidance and counselling are a whole-school responsibility, with guidance counsellors playing their part within an overall team approach. The representative organisations for school principals and school management have developed a framework that assists schools on how best to manage the provision of guidance from within their staffing allocation. Wherever possible, group work and class-based activity should be used to maximise the amount of time available for those pupils who are most in need of one-to-one support. In February the Department of Education and Skills published a guide to developing student support teams in post-primary schools. This is an important resource for schools in promoting and protecting students' well-being and an aid to establishing a team or reviewing an existing team.

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