More than 1600 NSW schools without full time counsellors

Primary school children have come back from the pandemic more anxious than ever, but new data reveals 1,688 NSW schools still don’t have a fulltime school counsellor.

PRIMARY school children are more anxious than ever – but 1688 NSW schools do not have a full-time counsellor.

Internal education department data obtained by NSW Labor has revealed that 328 of the schools have access to a counsellor for just two hours per week.

Bonnet Bay Public School in Sydney’s south has 202 enrolled students but has access to a counsellor for roughly four hours a week.

Kellyville Public School has 851 students with 0.6 of a full-time counsellor, or roughly 22 hours.

Narrabeen North Public School has access to a counsellor for roughly 17 hours a week for 810 kids.

The data comes 12 years after the NSW coroner recommended one full-time counsellor for every 500 students.

A shortage of school counsellors is impacting NSW schools.

“Thousands of schools right across Sydney and the regions are going without a full-time school counsellor, with some schools having a counsellor available for less than a quarter of a day per week,” NSW Labor education spokeswoman Prue Car said.

“Dominic Perrottet is going on a global search for a mega-salary behaviour tsar when what schools actually need is more school counsellors on the ground. With student attendance and outcomes both falling, it’s clear the premier has all the wrong priorities.”

Shadow Minister for education, Prue Car. Picture: Nikki Short

While the government is making strides in providing more counsellors to high schools, primary school-aged children are missing out, NSW Teachers Federation President Angelo Gavrielatos said.

“The latest publicly available data shows there are 106 vacant school counsellor positions,” he said.

“This is putting even more pressure on an already exhausted teaching service dealing with the complexity of the contemporary classroom. Our school counsellors are dedicated, committed professionals doing all they can to meet the increasingly complex demands of our students. Their case load is totally unrealistic, unmanageable and unacceptable.”

The lack of counsellors available for students has been slammed by the Opposition and teacher’s union.

It comes as the state government revealed in The Sunday Telegraph that the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute is investigating ways to improve primary student wellbeing after a spike in kids returning from the pandemic with heightened anxiety.

Education Minister Sarah Mitchell said the research would form the basis of solutions for primary schools. “The government has invested significantly in health and wellbeing support, services and personnel in our high schools over the last few years, and we want that same high calibre of support in our primary schools,” she said.