SENATORS Sherwin Gatchalian, Joel Villanueva, and Pia Cayetano called on the Commission on Higher Education to prioritize implementing essential courses and reconstituting technical panels to address issues within guidance counseling programs.

This came after CHED Chairperson Popoy De Vera III cited mental health concerns as one of the main reasons for student dropouts.

Villanueva highlighted the shortage of guidance counselors, noting that the profession suffers from low enrollment and graduation rates due to its limited career path within the education sector.

While higher education institutions have a more favorable guidance counselor-to-student ratio, the scarcity of graduates from guidance and counseling programs remains a major issue.

De Vera revealed that only 43 higher education institutions offer guidance and counseling programs nationwide, describing the career path in the field as “a dead end.”

“There are actually regions in the Philippines where there is no university offering guidance counseling, so you can imagine how challenging it would be to produce guidance counselors. In our data, Region II and Region IX have no HEIs offering guidance and counseling…We hope that Congress can amend the law fast enough so that we can produce enough guidance counselors,” De Vera said.

“We need to fast-track the courses that we are in dire need of,” Cayetano stressed.

She suggested a possible educational pathway where students pursuing professional degrees such as education could take an additional 12 to 18 units to qualify as ‘school counselor associates.’

De Vera welcomed the suggestion and committed to addressing the shortage.