1. INTRODUCTION
The contemporary role of school counselors entails many diverse responsibilities, such as conflict resolution and primary prevention programs, as well as an expectation of school counselors to perform many other duties at school, such as administrative work and teaching. School counselors often need to negotiate their responsibilities and the boundaries of their role in school (Fan et. al. 2021). The contemporary role of school counselors has evolved to encompass a diverse array of responsibilities aimed at fostering students' academic, social, and emotional development. These responsibilities include delivering mental health support, facilitating conflict resolution, and implementing primary prevention programs such as social-emotional learning and anti-bullying initiatives. However, despite their specialized training and expertise, these professionals are frequently assigned non-counseling responsibilities, including administrative tasks and classroom teaching duties. This expansion of their role leads to role ambiguity, where counselors experience uncertainty about their specific responsibilities, and role overload, where the volume of tasks exceeds their capacity. Such discrepancies hinder their ability to perform core counseling functions effectively and contribute to increased stress and potential burnout. Addressing these challenges is crucial to ensuring school counselors can fulfill their roles and positively impact student well-being and academic success.
In the Philippines, this issue is further compounded by the designation of teachers as "guidance-teacher designates" in the absence of licensed guidance counselors. These designates are tasked with implementing guidance programs, such as Homeroom Guidance, which focus on students' academic, personal-social, and career development.
However, they often lack formal training in counseling, leading to challenges in effectively delivering these programs. Studies have highlighted that guidance designates serve as program managers, providing technical assistance to teachers, conducting orientations, and validating the content and pedagogy of guidance modules. Despite their critical role, many face difficulties due to inadequate training and support, which can hinder the full implementation of guidance programs and affect their effectiveness in addressing students' needs. This complex landscape underscores the need for a comprehensive understanding of the roles and challenges faced by school counselors and guidance-teacher designates. By examining these dynamics, this research aims to provide insights into how role clarity, adequate training, and institutional support can enhance the effectiveness of school counseling services, ultimately contributing to the holistic development of students.
The Department of Education implements educational reforms, programs, and projects to address the key issues of access and quality of basic education, as well as the relevance and efficiency of the education system (World Data in Education, 2021). To simplify this, the Department of Education creates programs to ensure inclusivity and that education is needed for all. Nonetheless, equipping the learners with the knowledge and skills that are deemed necessary to develop their full potential and thrive in the real world is the paramount objective of all educational institutions. Developing skills that range from simple to complex is essential for a learner to develop into a more productive citizen of the country. Therefore, academic institutions place a high premium on improving and developing the basic literacy and skills of the learners, giving them the hope of attaining success in the future. This incredible challenge poses more demand for the teachers, considered one of the cornerstones of education.
The K-12 law stipulates that the Department of Education shall adhere to levels of standards and principles in developing the curriculum. Its main principle revolves around transforming the learning environment into a more learner centered. However, one key element of the principles behind the law states that the curriculum shall be relevant, responsive, and research-based (officialgazette.gov.ph, 2020). This clearly states that DepEd should create a more holistic curriculum than the previous one. Most Filipinos see the law merely as an additional two years in basic education. Still, based on the statements, the law wishes to have Filipino learner’s adept in real-world situations. This connotes that the teachers should take the initiative to improve themselves to better meet the demands of the new curriculum. It is safe to assume that teachers feel the added pressure and burden of living up to the expectations of the basic education curriculum.
In turn, the pressure and burden may become distress, which teachers must cope with to maintain a positive outlook on their daily tasks. To make matters bleaker, some teachers are assigned to take on the position of guidance designates, which adds more to the overflowing responsibilities of the teachers. Guidance Designates take on the responsibility of delivering the contents of the guidance program and ensuring that the guidance services, minus the counseling service, are well implemented. They expect this task to provide seamless delivery and implementation of the general thrust of the country's K-12 basic education curriculum.
The pandemic severely affected the education sector, posing significant impacts on the whole teaching and learning processes, as there was a sudden need for recalibration and realignment. One of the said moves is the implementation of the Homeroom Guidance Program (HGP) in the school year 2021-2022. Homeroom Guidance is an all-inclusive proactive program aiming to develop K-12 learners fully equipped in academic, personal, social, and career development life skills (Department of Education). It is not considered a formal learning area. It is more concerned with equipping learners with competencies not addressed by formal learning areas but are nonetheless rudimentary to their holistic development (Department of Education).
In its implementation, various stakeholders are to be involved, from the school to the division and national levels. Within the school, the School Head is tasked with supervising and monitoring the implementation of Homeroom Guidance, and a Guidance Counselor is responsible for being the program manager to ensure that the Homeroom Guidance period in classes contains the correct content and pedagogy. They are in charge of conducting the orientation on HGP at the start of the school year, holding regular meetings with Class Advisers, and providing guidance services or interventions adherent to RA 9258 or the Guidance Counseling Act of 2004, should the need arise. However, due to a lack of licensed or registered Guidance Counselors in the Philippines, teachers are forced to take on the role of Guidance Designates to cover the roles and responsibilities required for the HGP. As such, teachers have a greater workload due to their dual roles or function.
In an online consultation with the Guidance-Teacher Designates of Tarlac City Schools Division, various experiences were laid out. Moreover, while variegated they may be, they all pointed to a common trend---their dual roles and functions as Guidance-Teacher Designates have exponentially exacerbated the stresses that arose during the country’s shift to remote learning modality. In a detailed analysis of the changing roles of teachers in Maryland, the multiple roles of teachers increased role expectations and had intensified instructional, collaborative, institutional, and learning impacts. According to the results, these changes negatively affected the teacher's relationships with the students, pedagogy, and well-being (Valli and Buese). These results resonate with the manifestations of the Guidance-Teacher Designates in the online consultation, who confessed that the multiple roles and responsibilities have taken a heavy toll on their physical, social, and mental well-being.
There is a doubt that the new setup for learning is something novel to all Filipinos. With the COVID-19 virus still unchecked and the insufficient supply of vaccines, teachers and learners are still at the mercy of the remote learning modality for the coming school years. This scenario poses added distress to the teachers, specifically those given the extra load of becoming school guidance designates, as they must immerse themselves in the new learning and set up. Thus, providing them with the ability to cope with the changes and challenges in the way learning and the guidance program is delivered. Acknowledging the diversity and uniqueness of the guidance-teacher designates in dealing with changes in the education sector is essential. With this diversity and manifested sentiments during online consultation, the experiences of the Guidance-Teacher Designates vary and lead to adverse effects.
To add more to the immense pressure, they experience in this remote learning setup, there are still other factors that they need to consider that possibly increase the amount of distress. To summarize what was shared in the consultation, they reported struggling with conducting their dual roles and functions as teachers and guidance designates. Specifically, they encounter difficulties monitoring the distribution and retrieval cycles of modules for the Homeroom Guidance Program and the Career Guidance Program. On top of this, they also reported being more stressed than usual about managing their teaching load and balancing it with the administrative load required from guidance designates or advocates. Initially, teachers with insufficient training and resources also struggled with implementing guidance services and engaging with parents and/or guardians.
However, these changes do not have purely adverse effects on teachers. In research conducted on teachers in Davao, Philippines, the results implied that while the participants struggled with their multiple roles, they earned positive gains, such as being more challenged and motivated to elevate themselves to deliver their work’s many demands and responsibilities. They were revealed to be more engaged in developing their endurance, perseverance, determination, and competence. Despite the onerous responsibilities that multiple roles bring, they manifested positive insights about how they improved in committing and dedicating, having positive outlooks on life, and nurturing a growth mindset (Into and Cherry). These results are contingent on the teacher guidance designations of Tarlac City in dealing with these stressors, as they all practiced common ways, such as trying to maintain a positive outlook and well-being, managing time effectively, collaborating with peers and stakeholders, and looking to spiritual interventions.
In the Philippine context, numerous studies were performed highlighting the practices and strategies of teachers and counselors in dealing with stressors. In one study by Talidong and Toquero (2022), they investigated the teachers' practices in dealing with anxiety amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. Their study established that the closure of schools, the implementation of health protocols like social distancing, and the quarantines have caused sudden anxiety among the teachers. Their design involved the utilization of an online survey to gather data. Results of the study revealed that the teachers utilized continuous communication with their peers in dealing with their anxiety. Furthermore, the study also showed that teachers find time to engage in purposeful activities when dealing with challenging times. More so, the study showed that adherence to the quarantine protocols is also the teachers’ way of dealing with anxiety (Talidong & Toquero, 2022). This study clearly manifests that Filipino teachers are affected by the pandemic and the disruption of the regular face-to-face classroom interaction. With the onset of remote learning in the country, Filipino teachers, as indicated in the study results, are taking several steps to address their stressors.
In another study conducted in 2020, 105 selected teachers answered an online survey that generally aimed to describe the perceived stress due to the pandemic. Results of the study showed that more than half of the respondents have experienced moderate levels of stress due to the pandemic. Surprisingly, the result indicated that female teachers are more prone to experiencing stress than male teachers. As part of the coping mechanisms of the respondents, the study indicated that stress-management training and intervention must be considered to allow the teachers to cope with the stress properly, as brought by the pandemic (Oducado et al., 2020). This study is insightful because it compared the stress levels experienced by male and female teachers. With the results of the study, it is safe to assume that both sexes suffer from stress brought about by the pandemic. Nonetheless, both sexes are similar because they both experience some levels of stress, and both sexes agree that there is a need to address the stress by coming up with strategies or mechanisms to lessen the impact of such stressors.
One insightful study was conducted by Robosa (2021). In the study, the role of the government in terms of its ability to provide help and assistance to public and private school teachers is highlighted. The result of the study revealed that government programs will help the teachers cope with the challenges posed by the pandemic. Any government project will aid in the formation of better well-being and outlook despite the pandemic (Robosa, 2021). The study helps understand how guidance teachers deal with the challenges of remote learning. The study presented the reality of teachers who have experienced a level of stress and who require external help to cope with the challenging times. External help in dealing with the pandemic is indeed important because it leads to the formation of proper coping mechanisms that, in the end, can lead to productivity in the workplace.
This becomes more significant with the country's current health crisis. In a study published online in 2020, Klapproth et. al. (2020) discovered that 50% of teachers who were the respondents in the study experienced medium to high levels of stress due to distance teaching through online classes. Their research also established that teachers used more “functional coping strategies” to deal with the pressures brought by distance learning (Klapproth, et.al., 2020). This research was performed in Germany and could provide good insight into the proposed study. However, the gap in the study lies in the fact that Germany uses online classes as a response to the absence of traditional face-to-face classroom interaction. In contrast, most Filipino learners choose the modular learning modality. For this reason, the researcher also aims to propose this study to investigate the stressors brought by the modular distance learning modality and the coping mechanisms that the guidance designates to address the stressors.
In an article posted in Counseling Today, a publication of the American Counseling Association, Laurie Meyers stated, “School counselor is a deceptively simple title. School counselors play many roles, including social and emotional educator, academic advisers, conflict mediator, wellness coach, mental health therapist, student champion, educational collaborator, and family liaison” (Meyers, 2020). School counselors indeed have many roles to play and adopt. To localize this in the Philippines, due to a lack of registered guidance counselors, some public-school teachers are responsible for acting out the role of a school counselor on top of their very demanding role as a classroom teacher. To state that school designates are overworked is indeed an understatement. To state that school designations are stress-free is indeed out of the picture. This is the reason for the researcher to propose a study that aims to investigate the stressors that the guidance designates face daily. In addition, the researcher also proposes this study to investigate the strategies and coping mechanisms that the guidance designates for maintaining a well-adjusted behavior and personality.
Changes in our educational system today give new roles for the subject teacher, whether his assignment is in pre-school, elementary, junior high school, or senior high school. With technological advances, new techniques, strategies, and methods should be integrated into our school system.
It is without a doubt that the absence of the traditional face-to-face interaction in the classroom setting places tremendous pressure on the part of the educators to ensure that learning continues and that the basic skills and competencies are taught and imparted to the learners. The uncertainty of the future because of the global pandemic resulted in drastic measures and innovative approaches to answer the challenge of keeping the schools open amidst the crisis. The basic response of the education sector is to continue with the opening of classes with the distance learning modality in mind.
This theory is a clear description of the non-traditional teacher-student relationship. It explains a form of relationship when the students and the teachers are physically not in close contact. This theory is highly applicable to the present state of Philippine education; wherein traditional physical contact is removed from the equation of the regular teacher-student relationship. With the new setup in teaching the lessons and competencies in the classroom for this school year, some Filipinos wonder about the learners' academic performance.
To some extent, the attainment of better performance among learners also rests upon the care of teachers in the field who act as guidance designates. These people take on the Herculean task of delivering the services of the Guidance Program on top of their already hectic schedule and role as classroom teachers.
As of May 2020, the Department of Education employs only 1,096 active registered counselors. The allotted items to be filled out number 5,398, but unfortunately, only 20% have been filled due to the low incentives that a person may get if they decide to work for the Department of Education as a full-pledged Guidance Counselor (Magsambo & Chi, 2020). This scenario is discouraging because of the potential void that the absence of a registered Guidance Counselor in public schools can bring into the overall development of a learner’s well-being. To address this salient issue, teacher guidance designates are tapped to fill in the void and somehow take on the delivery of the basic guidance services in the public schools.
Nonetheless, Secretary Leones Briones, the Department of Education Secretary, assured the entire department that valuable steps are being taken into consideration in light of the lack of school counselors. The Department of Education is working with the Department of Budget Management and the Civil Service Commission to address the country's lack of guidance counselors (Malipot, 2020). Thus, until the registered guidance counselors take their rightful position in the public schools, the guidance-teacher designates will still be the best option in ensuring that the learners get the services provided by the guidance program of the school, and that the learners’ progress and development in terms of their performance are considered.
However, with the recent crisis that the country faces, Filipinos are somewhat cynical that the learners could still attain a quality and standard education because Filipinos, especially the parents, doubt the effectiveness of distance learning.
Furthermore, still on the study of the group of Ogbonna, the findings revealed that teaching word processing using synchronous and asynchronous modes considerably increased students’ practical skills acquisition. This study then fortifies the claim that distance learning improves the students' academic performance.
In another related research conducted by Dada et al. 2021, results positively impacted the use of distance learning. This research study examines the impact of asynchronous and synchronous e-learning modes and their learning outcomes on students’ performance at the National Open University of Nigeria. The results revealed that 60% of respondents understand asynchronous and synchronous e-learning modes. The results also revealed that 55% of respondents agreed that the effects of asynchronous and synchronous e-learning modes on students' academic performance are positive. This research has been able to establish that there is a relationship between a teacher’s asynchronous and synchronous e-learning mode practices and students’ academic performance. However, the study suggests that teachers' decisions about asynchronous and synchronous e-learning mode practices can either strongly facilitate or obstruct students' learning. The study also found a positive relationship between performance-oriented asynchronous and synchronous e-learning mode practices and students’ achievement, as well as between performance-oriented professional development and performance-oriented asynchronous synchronous e-learning mode practices. (Dada et al., 2021).
A study regarding burnout, stress, and direct student services among school counselors revealed a negative impact of stress on how school counselors perform their duties and responsibilities. The research findings showed that stress and burnout have a statistically significant correlation and that the feeling of burnout had a negative impact and contributed to the facilitation of the services (Mullen & Gutierrez, 2020). This study presents compelling evidence as to the effect of stressors on the performance of the school counselors in delivering the various services of the school guidance program. This study could very well be a good representation of the current situation that the teacher-guidance designates in the public schools’ experience. Undoubtedly, they experience a level of stress due to their load as a teacher and a guidance counselor, and this level of stress becomes even more severe to some extent because of the new setup in teaching brought by COVID-19. The only way for the guidance-teacher-designates to ensure their role as teachers and school counselors is acceptable is to adapt and cope with the present situation. They need many coping mechanisms to thrive in the new standard setup.
Coping mechanisms, as a concept, are defined by the American Psychological Association as “any conscious or nonconscious adjustment or adaptation that decreases tension and anxiety in a stressful experience or situation” (American Psychological Association, n.d.). For the most part, coping mechanisms differ from defensive mechanisms as the latter connotes the subconscious or unconscious response that an individual performs as a response to any stressful situation. Coping mechanisms are an individual's ability to consciously and voluntarily adapt to stressful situations (Algorani & Gupta, 2021). It is clear from the statements that coping mechanisms tend to carry a positive approach when dealing with stressors. It is also safe to assume that coping mechanisms lead to a more productive response to the stressors that a person experiences.
A related study was conducted in 2020 by Klapproth and others about the stress that German teachers experience during the COVID-19-induced distance teaching. In their study, 380 teachers participated in an online survey regarding their perceived stress level, coping strategies, and experienced barriers during the implementation of distance learning. The study's results yielded the idea that the effort of the teachers in mastering distance teaching brought about by the pandemic is challenging for them. The study showed that the teachers suffered from medium-to-high stress levels. Moreover, the interesting part of the result showed that secondary school teachers experienced significantly more stress than their counterparts. However, the study revealed that despite the stress, the teachers could cope functionally (Klapproth et al, 2020). This study focused more on teachers, but the study's insights are indeed revealing.
In a similar study that was made in 2020 by Macintyre et al, on the coping strategies of Language teachers during the spread of the pandemic, results suggested that the COVID-19 pandemic has brought in numerous coping strategies that the teachers employ to adapt to the changes. The study involved 600 language teachers worldwide who answered an online questionnaire in April 2020. The study yielded a result that showed teachers suffered from substantial stress levels. The substantial insight from this study involves the idea that the teachers prefer to use positive and proper coping mechanisms, like the approach coping mechanism, rather than the more negative avoidant one. However, some results showed that teachers become more avoidant as the stressors increase (MacIntyre et al, 2020). This study is indeed insightful as it corroborates the study of Klapproth (2020). Both studies reveal that teachers use positive coping mechanisms to deal with the stressors brought about by teaching in the new standard setup. However, it is notable that the research of MacIntyre et al presented the possibility of the teachers avoiding the stressors if they experience more.
Teachers must also be innovative and dynamic in their teaching methods. As stated by Zulfikar Alimuddin in Astini (2022), in Society 5.0, teachers must be more innovative and dynamic in their teaching methods. This means that teachers must be able to integrate digital technology into their teaching to prepare students for the challenges of the future. Furthermore, according to Fauziah et al. (2022), guidance and counseling teachers are essential in schools. Counselors play a crucial role in preparing students for the skills required to face the challenges of the times. Therefore, guidance and counseling teachers must be able to develop and implement practical guidance and counseling programs that meet the needs of students in Society 5.0. The shift to Society 5.0 requires individuals to develop new skills and abilities to adapt to the dynamic changes of technological progress. This puts a significant demand on students and educators to prepare themselves for the future. Guidance and counseling teachers are vital in preparing students for the skills and abilities required to succeed in Society 5.0. Therefore, it is essential to integrate guidance and counseling programs into the education system to ensure students can adapt and thrive in the ever-changing world. Collaboration between educators, policymakers, and the industry is crucial to further support the preparation of students for Society 5.0. Collaboration can help identify the skills and knowledge that students need to thrive in the future and develop effective strategies to integrate them into the education system.
Parents also play an essential role in preparing their children for Society 5.0. They can support their children by encouraging them to develop their soft skills, providing them access to digital technology, and exposing them to diverse experiences, promoting creativity and critical thinking. In summary, the shift to Society 5.0 requires a collaborative effort between educators, policymakers, industry, and parents to prepare students for the future. Guidance and counseling teachers are crucial in preparing students for the skills and abilities required to succeed in Society 5.0. Educators can ensure that students adapt and thrive in the ever-changing world by integrating practical guidance and counseling programs.
The purpose of counseling guidance is to help individuals make choices, adjusted and interpreted to the specific conditions. In this case, counseling guidance helps students in decision-making and develops a positive attitude towards work to help them develop and achieve their goals (Iswari & Afdal, 2020). In conclusion, counseling guidance is crucial in helping students become aware of their interests, personality, and abilities to develop a suitable career choice that matches the needs of Society 5.0. Providing professional services through counseling guidance will help students develop career choices and make the right career decisions for an effective and meaningful life.
The contemporary role of school counselors entails many diverse responsibilities, such as conflict resolution and primary prevention programs, as well as an expectation of school counselors to perform many other duties at school, such as administrative work and teaching. School counselors often need to negotiate their responsibilities and the boundaries of their role in school (Fan et al., 2020).
School counselors frequently negotiate their roles and responsibilities within the school environment, striving to balance institutional demands with their specialized training and purpose. This ongoing negotiation underscores the need for clear role definitions and institutional support to ensure counselors can perform effectively without being overwhelmed by non-counseling duties.
Statement of the Problem
The study's main objective was to describe the stressors and coping mechanism strategies of the Guidance-Teacher Designates of the School Division of Tarlac City brought about by their dual role and functions. The study further investigated and found resolutions to the following problems:
1. How do the stressors of guidance-teacher designates be described along:
1.1. Lack of appreciation;
1.2. Dealing with violence;
1.3. Lack of cooperation from parents;
1.4. Task prioritization;
1.5. Work-home conflict;
1.6. Conflict resolution; and
1.7. Teaching and dealing with discipline?
2. How is the coping mechanism of the guidance teacher designates/advocates described according to:
2.1. Positive outlook and well-being;
2.2. Time management;
2.3. Colleague collaboration;
2.4. External stakeholder collaboration;
2.5. Spiritual rejuvenation?
3. What action plan can be proposed to address the stress-related challenges of guidance-teacher designates?
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