Background of School Counselling in Malaysia
Guidance and counselling services were adopted by the Malaysian government as a formal student service in the 1960s. There was an educational reform in 1960s, in which a secondary 3 government examination (Penilaian Menengah Rendah, PMR) was introduced at the end of the third year of secondary schooling. It was formerly known as the Lower Certificate of Education. This change allowed students with minimum academic results to proceed to upper secondary education (Tan, Reference Tan2012). Many students were unable to cope with the examination-oriented upper secondary school curriculum. As a result, there were increasing cases of disciplinary and social problems in schools, such as gangsterism, drug problems, and vandalism. This phenomenon raised awareness and recognition of the importance of having guidance and counselling facilities in secondary schools (See & Ng, Reference See and Ng2010). Two hundred and seventy-five secondary school teachers were involved in the initial training conducted by the Ministry of Education, in collaboration with United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), in 1969 (Harun, Reference Harun2002).
The Malaysian Counsellors’ Association was founded during the 1980s by a group of college and school counsellors, but its impact on the practice of counselling was limited. In 1985, there were 888 counsellors serving in schools, of whom only 17 had a bachelor's degree in guidance and counselling. The rest of the school counsellors were appointed after having attended short courses in guidance and counselling, which were organised during school holidays by the Ministry of Education. Local universities began offering higher qualifications such as diplomas and bachelors'and masters’ degrees in guidance and counselling in 1982 (Vasantha, Reference Vasantha2000).
One of the common misconceptions about guidance and counselling services in schools was that it was a process of advice giving. It was therefore thought to be easy and within the scope of any schoolteachers (Vasantha, Reference Vasantha2000). Until 1996, most counsellors were involved in both teaching and counselling. Typically, they were expected to counsel students with behavioural problems. This resulted in a reluctance among students to seek counselling within schools as it was associated with having behavioural problems. Besides focusing on disciplinary or behaviour problems, counsellors usually had to organise career fairs and conduct workshops on such topics as drug prevention, teenage sexuality, crime awareness, and so on (Kok, Low, Lee, & Cheah, Reference Kok, Low, Lee and Cheah2012). It was found that the role of school counsellor in the secondary schools of Malaysia was so poorly defined that some counsellors were involved in non-counselling related jobs, such as checking badges, road safety, uniforms, tardiness, and helping weak students, or assisting the school disciplinary master/mistress with disciplinary cases (Low, Kok, & Lee, Reference Low, Kok and Lee2013).
This situation improved only in 2000 when the Ministry of Education made it compulsory for every secondary school to have at least one full-time counsellor (See & Ng, Reference See and Ng2010). The original document of the Ministry of Education Malaysia (1996) made it clear that full-time school counsellors were exempted from teaching and expected to concentrate, full time, on the development and wellbeing of students. How far those guidelines were followed in practice remains unclear.
However, independent or private secondary schools were not included in this ruling. Chinese independent secondary schools have employed school counsellors, without the support of the Ministry of Education, who are not necessarily qualified in the field of guidance and counselling. Due to the lack of staff and expertise, school counsellors are very frequently involved in teaching, organising events, disciplining students, investigating disciplinary cases, dealing with school scholarship matters, and sending unwell students to hospital (Toh, personal communication, June 1, 2015).
Until recently, there were still some concerns in regard to counsellors’ qualifications, supervision, and assessment tools. For example, only 20.7% of school counsellors were registered with the Malaysian Board of Counsellors (Miller, Reference Miller2009). According to the Counsellors Act 1998, registered counsellors are granted a lifelong, valid licence by the Board of counsellors and require no further professional training to sustain their practising licence (The Commissioner of Law Revision Malaysia, 2006). Many were not registered because they lacked the Board-stipulated requirements. Unlicensed counsellors were allowed and accepted in schools as long as they had a certificate in psychology (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 1996). They practised counselling only in educational settings and did not always use proper theory to guide their session; this reflected upon the credibility of all counsellors (Mohamad & Rahman, Reference Mohamad and Rahman2011). Most importantly, it was found that after having been established for 50 years, school counselling services remained unpopular among Malaysian secondary school students (Low et al., Reference Low, Kok and Lee2013). Limited literature can be found on the utilisation rate of school counselling. According to Chai (2000, as cited in Kok et al., Reference Kok, Low, Lee and Cheah2012), only 16.6% of students used school counselling services. This included not only students with emotional or interpersonal problems, but also those who had undertaken a screening test to identify those at high risk. The actual counselling utilisation rate remained unknown. Underuse of counselling services in schools is worrying, especially when suicide rates and mental health problems among young people are increasing (Wilson, Deane, & Ciarrochi, Reference Wilson, Deane and Ciarrochi2005). Many suicidal adolescents are reluctant to seek help from mental health professionals. Adolescence has always been perceived as a period of ‘storm and stress’, with a wide range of mental and physical developments, creating a high-risk group in need of emotional support (Fox & Butler, Reference Fox and Butler2007). However, few adolescents are willing to use counselling services.
Chinese Schools in Malaysia
Under the influence of the 1957 policy of Malaysia, the government encouraged existing Chinese and English secondary schools to follow the new school model (the national-type secondary school), and offered full financial support to those who adopted it (Rudner, Reference Rudner1977). However, Chinese independent secondary schools remained as they were because they wanted to provide secondary education in the Chinese language (United Chinese School Committees’ Association of Malaysia, 2015). Privately maintained schools were permitted to continue operating, but they did not qualify for financial aid.
In Malaysia, due to its multicultural environmental and for historical reasons, there are 10 different types of public schools and 9 types of private schools (Siah, Ong, Tan, & Sim, Reference Siah, Ong, Tan and Sim2015). In 2010, Malaysia had a population of 29 million, of whom 24.6% were Chinese (Department of Statistics Malaysia, 2015). National-type Chinese primary schools numbered 1,294 out of the national total of 5,863, and all teaching in these schools is in Mandarin. As for secondary schools, there were 1,964 regular national secondary schools out of 2,366, and 60 Chinese independent schools, teaching a total of 83,880 students (Ministry of Education Malaysia, 2014).
Malaysian Chinese high schools were chosen for this study because Malaysian Chinese people place great importance and value on education, seeing it as a means to improve their social mobility. Compared to other types of high schools, most Chinese schools’ mottos include expressions of: li (propriety), yi (justice), lian (honesty), and chi (honour) to explicitly reflect traditional Confucian philosophy. Students from Chinese schools have additional stressors, such as the Chinese language being a compulsory subject, as well as additional subjects on Chinese values and culture (Sua, Ngah, & Darit, Reference Sua, Ngah and Darit2013). Malaysian Chinese are considered to be one of the most academically competitive groups in the nation. Furthermore, high schools normally impose physical punishments on students who violate school rules. These disciplinary practices remain in Chinese schools despite the prohibition on physical punishment by the Malaysia Ministry of Education.
Factors Affecting Students’ Willingness to Seek Counselling
Various avoidance factors have been identified in counselling literature that affect students’ willingness to seek counselling. Many have explained help-seeking behaviour using the theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, Reference Ajzen2007) by looking into the factors of social cognitive variables, including attitudes, subjective norms, and perceived behavioural control in assessing help-seeking behaviour.
According to Vogel, Wester, Larson, and Wade (Reference Vogel, Wester, Larson and Wade2006), sufficient information about the costs and benefits of therapy is important for an individual's decision-making about seeking professional help. Snape et al. (Reference Snape, Perren, Jones and Rowland2003) found that one's willingness to seek psychological help is affected by one's knowledge of counselling services. People want information about a counsellor's qualifications, counselling session times, waiting times, self-help information, and treatment. A similar result was concluded in the Asian context by Setiawan (Reference Setiawan2006), who examined the factors that encourage and discourage willingness to seek counselling
Simply, lack of knowledge about the procedure used in counselling services, or the place and existence of such services, were highlighted as discouraging factors. This is similar to the situation in Malaysia, where Kok et al. (Reference Kok, Low, Lee and Cheah2012) discovered that the lack of understanding about counselling kept students from voluntarily seeking counselling.
As well as the importance of having the right to obtain information, other people's experience also contributed to the decision to seek help. Outcomes from their previous behaviour were evaluated and considered, leading to new decisions about what to do in the future (Vogel et al., Reference Vogel, Wade and Haake2006). Professional help-seeking intentions were found to have a positive correlation with past use of professional help (Mackenzie, Gekoski, & Knox, Reference Mackenzie, Gekoski and Knox2006).
However, Vogel and Wester (Reference Vogel and Wester2003) argued that having seen a counsellor does not automatically contribute to greater likelihood of seeking counselling again. They emphasised the quality of participants’ previous experiences. They found that if a previous experience was positive, the likelihood of seeking counselling when a problem arose is higher as compared to negative experience that might lead to avoidance of counselling in future. This was further supported by the findings from the study of Raviv, Gefen, and Fink (Reference Raviv, Raviv, Gefen and Fink2009), which found a correlation between satisfaction with previous professional contact and willingness to refer self or others for counselling. A survey done by Martin (Reference Martin2010) discovered that the barriers that keep students from disclosure of mental health conditions to mental health staff arose from embarrassing or negative experiences, such as issues of confidentiality and counsellors being unhelpful. On the other hand, a previous positive experience of counselling contributed to a more positive attitude and greater confidence, as well as more recognition of the need for professional psychological help (Masuda et al., Reference Masuda, Suzumura, Beauchamp, Howells and Clay2005).
Low utilisation of counselling services can be due to cultural factors (Yi & Tidwell, Reference Yi and Tidwell2005). Stigma is an important factor in reluctance among Asians to get professional counselling help in case it brings shame to their families. The association of stigma and shame with mental illness is a recurring theme in Chinese culture (Blignault, Ponzio, Rong, & Eisenbruch, Reference Blignault, Ponzio, Rong and Eisenbruch2008). Malaysia is one of the Asian countries where traditional concepts of shame or fear of stigmatisation influences those seeking psychological help. The Asian family system causes individuals to hide their mental health concerns, which contributes towards under-utilisation of counselling services. Asian Americans have also showed negative attitudes, greater fear of stigma, and lower interpersonal openness than did European Americans (Masuda & Boone, Reference Masuda and Boone2011).
Corrigan (Reference Corrigan2004) found that fear of being labelled ‘mentally ill’ had become a barrier to seeking help. Over the decades, many researchers studied stigma as one of the barriers to mental healthcare. Vogel, Wade, and Haake (Reference Vogel, Wade and Haake2006) noticed that people avoid seeking psychological help, fearing stigma. The effects of fear of stigma on attitudes towards counselling and willingness to seek help was also studied by Martin (Reference Martin2010) and Quinn, Wilson, MacIntyyre, and Tinklin (Reference Quinn, Wilson, MacIntyre and Tinklin2009).
Stigma is a socially constructed mark of disapproval, shame or disgrace that causes noticeable disadvantages through the restriction of opportunities (Martin, Reference Martin2010). Vogel et al. (Reference Vogel, Wade and Haake2006) defined stigma as the perception that a person who seeks psychological treatment is undesirable or socially unacceptable. Stigma can be further divided into two categories: public stigma and self-stigma. Corrigan (Reference Corrigan2004) held that public stigma is the phenomenon of large social groups endorsing stereotypes about and acting against a stigmatised group, which includes an imposition of negative views towards the overall community. Accordingly, seeking counselling services has been labelled and rated as a less acceptable behaviour (Vogel, Wade, & Hackler, Reference Vogel, Wade and Hackler2007). Public stigma processes exist when negative stereotyping leads to negative attitudes and negative behaviours (e.g., distancing) towards those seeking help (Verhaeghe & Bracke, Reference Verhaeghe and Bracke2011). Public stigma also brings a sense of fear and isolation that naturally becomes self-stigma (Martin, Reference Martin2010). These negative external perceptions from others can be harmful to a person's internal sense of self and can cause a loss of confidence, poor self-esteem, and lowered self-expectations. Vogel et al. (Reference Vogel, Wade and Hackler2007) found that perceptions of public stigma contributed to the experience of self-stigma. Self-stigma is the perception held by an individual that they are socially unacceptable, which is exacerbated when public stigma results from having sought psychological help (Vogel et al., Reference Vogel, Wade and Hackler2007). Such self-prejudice resulting from internalisation of public stigma can lead to detrimental emotions (Corrigan, Reference Corrigan2004).
Purpose of Study
There are few empirical studies investigating the utilisation of school counselling services in Malaysia. Many of the relevant studies have been in a Western context or a general context of school counselling services.
Therefore, in order to provide more information about ways to improve the usage of school counselling services in the Malaysian Chinese school context, this study was designed to explore the reasons for the under-utilisation of school counselling services among Malaysian Chinese school students. The research question was: What are the barriers that prevent students from seeking school counselling services? Findings from this study will allow relevant authorities, such as school counsellors, school management administrators, and education ministry personnel to design stigma-reduction interventions and education programs in order to reduce barriers and increase the utilisation rate of school counselling services.
Method
Participants
A sample of 277 students from two Chinese high schools in the State of Perak, Malaysia participated in this study. There were 121 males (43.7%) and 156 females (56.3%). The age of the sample ranged from 13 to 20 years, with a mean age of 15.9 (SD = 2.44). All of the participants were Chinese. Of the 277 participants, 14 (5.1%) reported voluntary engaging in personal counselling in the past, 8 (2.9%) were referred by disciplinary teachers (non-voluntary counselling), whereas 255 (92.0%) had never sought personal counselling.
Two high schools were recruited for this study: a national Chinese secondary school and a Chinese independent school. These two schools were from Ipoh city, State of Perak, Malaysia. Ipoh is a well-developed, tranquil city, with a population of 650,000, located 200 miles from Kuala Lumpur. As a neighbour state to Penang and Kuala Lumpur, Perak is attracting the bulk of investments in various industries. Recently, Perak began aiming to become one of the country's education hubs (Jaspal, Reference Jaspal2009). There are many private educational institutions, generally known as tuition centres, that provide National Curriculum educational assistance to students. Many parents send their children to these tuition centres for revision and enhancement lessons for examination purpose. Research has demonstrated that parents in Chinese culture are more likely to use shame inductive methods in disciplining and teaching children right from wrong (Wong & Tsai, Reference Wong, Tsai, Jessica, Richard and June2007). Furthermore, Chinese parents impose high expectations on their children and emphasise high academic performance as a means of bringing pride and honour to the family. This is reflected in the practice of sending children to ‘after-school’ tuition centres. Ipoh has many after-school care and tuition centres for secondary school children, mainly serving Chinese high school students (Kok, Reference Kok2013).
Procedures
Purposive sampling was used to invite students from Chinese schools located in Perak to participate in this study. Invitation letters were sent out to schools listed on the website of the Ministry of Education. Two schools responded and the school principal gave the researchers permission to conduct this study. School counsellors took responsibility for overseeing the whole data collection process. Several settings were involved and included classrooms, counselling rooms and hostels. A brief introduction to the study was given before packets containing participant information letters, informed consent forms and questionnaires were distributed to the participants. This was to ensure that the participants fully understood their rights and the details of the study. The participants were encouraged to ask questions. All participants completed the questionnaires in approximately 15 minutes.
An open-ended question was asked in the questionnaire: ‘What barriers, if any, keep you from seeking help from the school counsellor?’ This question was designed to understand, from the perspective of the participants, their reasons for not seeking school counselling. The participants were informed that there was no right or wrong answer and they were free to express their views. More than half (63%) responded in Chinese. As both researchers were fluent in English and Chinese, no translation was done in the process of data analysis. Some of the relevant examples of verbatim responses were translated from Chinese to English by one researcher. Back-translation was done by a co-researcher to ensure the accuracy of translation and to minimise any loss of meaning in the process of translation.
Data Analysis
The responses provided by the participants from the open-ended question were analysed by performing a thematic analysis. This analysis followed the guidelines provided by Braun and Clarke (Reference Braun and Clarke2006). There are a total of six phases of analysis, which include: phase 1 (familiarising with data), phase 2 (generating initial codes), phase 3 (searching for themes), phase 4 (reviewing themes), phase 5 (defining and naming themes), and phase 6 (producing the report). These phases, from familiarisation to abstraction and conceptualisation, are similar to the five key stages of qualitative data analysis described by Miles and Huberman (Reference Miles and Huberman2002).
An inductive analytic process was utilised. One example to show how different themes were conceptualised in this study was that the researcher first read through the responses a few times and noticed that words such as ‘not necessary’, ‘not severe’, and ‘no problem’ occurred repeatedly (phase 1). These were coded as ‘absence of problem’ (phase 2). After a discussion between the researchers, ‘absence of problem’ was then found to be similar in nature with another code formed, ‘perceived self-reliance’, because the participants perceived themselves to possess the ability to cope, and thus they answered ‘no problem’ (phases 3 and 4). Both codes were merged together, based on the concept of how participants perceived their problems. Lastly, the theme of ‘conceptualisation of problem’ was formed (phases 5 and 6), based on the similar concepts that showed up as one of the reasons for students to decline school counselling, and this was further analysed in relation to our research questions.
Reflexivity
Bias was a possibility because school counsellors were present during the administration of questionnaires and students might not reveal information if they thought it presented negative images of their schools. To minimise such biases, a few strategies were employed. First, we spoke to counsellors prior to administering the questionnaire. Counsellors were reminded not to walk about the room or look at participants’ responses. Counsellors approached participants only if they were asked to clarify any points. Second, anonymity and confidentiality were ensured by using only numbers or pseudonyms on the questionnaire. Each questionnaire was put in a packet before being submitted to counsellors. Completed questionnaires were handed to researchers immediately at the end of the day. Counsellors did not have access to the questionnaires throughout the process.
The authors were aware that their training in psychology and counselling and their deep concern that counselling services remained unpopular in Malaysian school might influence the way they interacted with the data. They realised that they had experienced frustration about how few people are aware of and understand the nature of counselling services in Malaysia. By keeping a reflective diary throughout the research, they were able to differentiate their concerns from the real struggles of students. Therefore, the focus to explore low counselling usage rates has been shifted from students’ understanding about counselling (author's assumption) to students’ contexts (the struggles or concerns from students’ points of view).
Results
Barriers to Seeking School Counselling
Six themes emerged from these responses (see Table 1): (a) self and public stigma (the Shameful Self) (b) conceptualisation of self and problem (the Responsible Self), (c) lack of courage (the Fearful Self), (d) concern about counsellors’ competency (the Concerned Self) (e) lack of time (the Busy Self), and (f) perceived support from family and friends (the Resourceful Self). The above six themes can be further grouped into two main themes, namely the effects of self and public stigma, and the contextualised issues that contributed to under-utilisation of counselling services.
Thematic Coding for the Open-Ended Question
Discussion
The researchers tried to understand the essence of answers given from the qualitative data and six themes were found: (a) self and public stigma (the Shameful Self), (b) lack of courage (the Fearful Self), (c) conceptualisation of self and problems (the Responsible Self), (d) concern about counsellors’ competency (the Concerned Self), (e) lack of time (the Busy Self), and (f) perceived support from family and friends (the Resourceful Self). The open-ended free style of expression of the answers revealed an intensive concern of ‘self’. On the one hand, these descriptions of self were loaded with emotions (the feelings of shame, fear, and personal responsibility); and, on the other hand, their concerns were related to the context.
Although only one theme (the Shameful Self) seems to be obviously related to self-stigma, after careful scrutiny, it became apparent that participants also revealed their worries about what would happen to them if they sought counselling services (feeling ashamed, embarrassed, fearful, and anxious); therefore, the first two themes were considered to be related to stigma (how others might view them or an adverse reaction from others if they sought a counselling service). The third theme (conceptualisation of problem) was derived from expressions of either having no problems or their problems not being severe enough to warrant a visit to a counselling centre (the students conceptualised that there must be a huge psychological problem to warrant such a step). Their conceptualisation of self was of a strong and responsible self who is capable of solving their own problems and should be responsible for their own problems. This third theme (the responsible self) can be related to the first two as a strategy to avoid the risk of being stigmatised.
Therefore, the first three emerging themes were further grouped as ‘Effect of self-stigma and public stigma’ because it revealed the ways our participants felt as an effect of self-stigma, whereas the other three themes were identified as ‘Contextualised issues’ (concern about the professionalism of counselling, finding time in the busy students’ life, and perceived support), in which our research participants were embedded.
The Effects of Self-Stigma and Public Stigma
The findings uncovered strong negative emotions (shame, fear) about seeking counselling services. This could be explained by the fear of being stigmatised and the way participants conceptualised themselves as a person (self-reliant), and also what is meant by seeking counselling help (implying severe psychological problems).
In the context of Malaysia, the collective culture that emphasises family pride might have discouraged students from seeking counselling. Chinese culture particularly stresses that family ‘face’ or pride (Soto, Levenson, & Ebling, Reference Soto, Levenson and Ebling2005) discourages open display of emotions and promotes avoidance of disclosure of personal problems. Self-stigma is socially constructed (Martin, Reference Martin2010) and it could arise from internalisation of negative public or cultural views about seeking help for personal problems that reveal personal vulnerability or inferiority (Corrigan, Reference Corrigan2004).
The theme of ‘fearful self’ showed that it takes great psychological courage to overcome the fear students experience when they seek counselling services in the context of Malaysia. Fear is a deterrent element in the help-seeking decision: fear of being stigmatised or of being out of their comfort zone. Some students responded that they ‘do not want to face the reality’. This may include the fear of unknown consequences and uncertainties of how other people might react towards their help-seeking behaviour. Such fear serves as a barrier in seeking school counselling. Our research findings revealed how stigma can lead students to feel ashamed and fearful, and even have a sense of being responsible for the stigma. Counselling can be a process of confronting destructive habits, anxieties, fears, and hearing the truth about one's life, and therefore the process of seeking counselling involves psychological courage (Putman, Reference Putman2004).
Because of such fear, students develop a sense of the need to be self-reliant and take responsibility for any problem in their lives. Curtis and Kelly (Reference Curtis and Kelly2013) found that one way to explain students’ reluctance to seek help was their perceived need for self-reliance. Taylor et al. (Reference Taylor, Sherman, Kim, Jarcho, Takagi and Dunagan2004) found that Asians felt less dependent on social support in coping with stress because they value relationships within groups so much that they prefer not to be seen as a burden to the social network, but to solve problems on their own instead.
Students’ conceptualisation of problems explained why they chose not to seek help. Counselling was not needed because the problems they faced were not ‘severe’ enough. For students, only psychological (or mental) problems were defined as being severe. This is in accordance with previous studies that students with moderate levels of problems, such as life transitions, stress (Wahab et al., Reference Wahab, Rahman, Hasan, Hafiz, Zamani, Arbaiei and Nawi2013), truancy and divorce in the family (Nik Jaafar et al., Reference Nik Jaafar, Iryani, Daud, Salwina, Ismail, Nazri and Shah2013) will not seek help. However, severe problems such as premarital sexual behaviour, teenage pregnancy, and substance abuse (Omar et al., Reference Omar, Hasim, Muhammad, Jaffar, Hashim and Siraj2010) were hidden from counsellors since these are behaviours that violate family and social expectations. According to the studies by Aida et al. (Reference Aida, Azimah, Radzniwan, Iryani, Ramli and Khairani2012), 49.1% of students thought that their problems were not very serious, which contributed to the failure to use health care services.
Therefore, we concluded that there are misconceptions about what constitutes a ‘severe’ problem and poor understanding of the role of school counselling services. These are worth overcoming because school counselling is viewed as a very problem-based intervention instead of being a way to enhance students’ growth and empower their development to the fullest potential. From their responses, students see school counselling as a service solely for people with severe mental or emotional problems and think that counsellors take responsibility for solving students’ problems. Students might have internalised misconceptions that the school counsellor deals only with serious mental illnesses or drug problems, leading to strong negative emotions and preventing them from seeking help.
Contextualised Issues
The findings illuminated our understanding of the influence of social context on students’ help-seeking behaviour. The research findings revealed concerns about issues related to time, competencies of counsellors, and family support that appeared to be barriers to seeking school counselling.
Students mentioned they had a lot of homework and had no time to seek help from school counsellors, which showed students prioritised academic success over mental wellbeing. The academic environment of Chinese schools was comparatively more competitive than other schools because Chinese families normally emphasise the importance of education. Stress occurs when there is pressure from parents and high expectations are set for students to excel in their studies (Hildebrand, Reference Hildebrand2011). A study conducted in Malaysia showed that parenting styles, especially the authoritarian parenting style, can contribute to elevated stress levels among the young (Sulaiman, Hassan, Sapian, & Abdullah, Reference Sulaiman, Hassan, Sapian and Abdullah2009). Due to the expectations and stress from parents and schools, students work hard to strive for the standard being set, even at the cost of their personal psychological wellbeing.
Seeking school counselling seemed to be the last resort, as help would only be sought from school counsellors once a difficulty had deteriorated and could not be dealt with by the students or their family members. The current study found that some students have support from other sources (parents, family members, and friends). Social support systems have been viewed by students in a rather positive way. Although it seems to contradict the theme of self-reliance discussed previously, Asians are likely to utilise their support system only if it does not involve explicit disclosure of personal stressful events or feelings (Kim, Sherman, & Taylor, Reference Kim, Sherman and Taylor2008).
Despite the encouraging findings of this study that the students were generally confident with their support from family and friends, the authors argue that one still needs to consider the importance of family environment because a problematic family can be a source of trouble instead of being a refuge. The family structure has been shown to have impacts on cognitive, social and emotional wellbeing among children (Amato, Reference Amato2005). At present, there are family and societal changes in Asia due to the industrialisation of the economies of Asian countries. New trends, such as greater participation of married women in the labour force and parental divorce, have taken place (East West Centre, 2002). In fact, a study showed that stressful family life events, such as improper parental rearing behaviours, or parenting styles and separation from parents, were strongly linked to increased risk of suicide attempts (Xing et al., Reference Xing, Tao, Wan, Xing, Qi, Hao and Huang2010).
Students have also expressed their concerns about school counsellors’ competencies and qualifications. They did not perceive school counselling as being professional help. Although the Malaysian government has made it compulsory for all high schools to have at least one full-time counsellor, only about 30% are licensed counsellors (Bakar, Mohamed, & Zakaria, Reference Bakar, Mohamed and Zakaria2011). Our findings reflect the challenges faced by school counsellors in Malaysia. Issues including lack of professional training and administrative workload were documented by See (Reference See2000). After 13 years, a similar issue was again brought up by Low et al. (Reference Low, Kok and Lee2013), namely that many counsellors are not trained as school counsellors but rather only in other fields such as school psychology or educational psychology. Many school counsellors reported that they have only limited exposure to actual school counselling practices. Findings from this study revealed the need for schools to adopt a more comprehensive and professional approach to overcome the misconceptions and to ensure the provision of qualified and trained counsellors so that students could be confident about using the service.
Limitations and Recommendations
The use of only one open-ended question in accessing student's perceived barriers to school counselling can be seen as a limitation. Other qualitative approaches, such as in-depth interviews, would be better able to clarify meanings made by the research participants. This study only revealed the perceptions of students at two high schools in Perak state; therefore, it is not meant to be generalised to the wider population of high school students in Malaysia. Future research is recommended to expand the sample size at other schools in other parts of Malaysia with more diverse ethnic groups in which multicultural and multiracial issues could be further explored.
Implications
Our findings have illuminated our understanding of the barriers to seeking school counselling from students’ perspectives. Misconceptions and concerns about the contextualised setting were also revealed. Therefore, all educators (i.e., teachers, school counsellors, school administrators, and even parents and researchers) need to work together to help students to overcome their misconceptions of school counselling services and to raise their confidence in help-seeking behaviour, as well as to reduce the stigma attached to it. Policy makers can work towards a more comprehensive approach to benefit students.
Stigma reduction efforts are needed in order to encourage wider usage of counselling services to enhance the mental health of our young people. More effective programs to promote counselling services in schools should be designed so that seeking counselling help is not seen as having a ‘severe mental problem’. The preventive and developmental counselling approach can be utilised so that students will not view counselling as a remedial service for severe problems. Counsellors can also help students to develop different aspects of their lives so that they can discover and work towards their potential. Another approach may be to have school counsellors in Malaysia who are trained in group counselling, and to conduct coping strategy classes that do not isolate individual students. In this way, counselling services will not be portrayed as services for problematic students. Instead of focusing on remedial interventions, school counsellors would be able to work more on preventative interventions. Educational workshops and talks pertaining to student-related issues, challenges in schools, and personal and career development can bring about fresh and positive perceptions of school counselling among students. Information on what the school counselling service is for should also be disseminated to students.
Furthermore, in regard to students’ concern about counsellors’ competency, it is also suggested that students need to be informed about their counsellors’ qualifications, expertise, and how their information will be treated confidentially, so that trust can be established.
Conclusion
The findings of our study suggest that Malaysian schools and mental health professionals need to consider the barriers to seeking counselling, especially the contextualised concerns that were uncovered in the current findings. These were feelings of shame, fear of being stigmatised, concern about the professionalism of Malaysian counsellors, busy academic schedules, and also misconceptions of what is meant by ‘problems’ that warrant seeking help. Future research is needed to investigate how those concerns can be addressed to improve the use of school counselling services in Malaysia.
