Berenice Daniels, Lynette Collair, Nadeen Moolla, Sandy Lazarus. The Handbook of International School Psychology. Editor: Shane R Jimerson, Thomas D Oakland, Peter T Farrell. Sage Publications. 2007.
Context of School Psychology
South Africa lies at the southern tip of the continent of Africa. With a landmass of 1,219,912 square kilometres, the country is nearly three times larger than the state of California in the United States and more than twice as large as France. It consists of nine provinces: Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, North West, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal, Limpopo, and Mpumalanga. In 2001, during the last census, its population was approximately 44 million (Government Communication and Information System, 2003). More than half live in urban centres, the largest of which are Johannesburg and Cape Town. There are 11 official languages. English is mostly used in business and government. The landscape varies dramatically across the country. South Africa is bordered on the west side by the Atlantic Ocean and on the east side by the Indian Ocean, and many picturesque beaches line the coast. In addition to its scenic attractions, South Africa has a mild and sunny climate. In 2004, the gross domestic product was US$491.4 billion, US$11,100 per capita. The majority of job opportunities are in services (45%) and industry (30%). Unemployment is high (50%).
South Africa has had an indigenous population for at least 100,000 years. The region first was colonised by the Dutch in 1652 and later by the British. The Union of South Africa came into being in 1910. Although segregationist policies existed earlier, racial segregation became firmly entrenched when the National Party assumed power in 1948. From 1948 to 1994, South Africa was one of the few countries in which a minority controlled the government under a policy called apartheid (from the Afrikaans word for “apartness”). The people of South Africa were divided into four main groups: White, Black, Coloured (i.e., “mixed race”), and Indian/Asian. People were classified on the basis of appearance and known ancestry. Whites made up about 10% of the population, controlled Parliament, administered the laws, and ensured that all the best areas, schools, jobs, and other resources were reserved for them. Blacks, who made up about 77% of the population, Coloureds (10%), and Asians (3%) were not allowed to vote and were subjected to harsh laws, deprivation, and lack of basic provisioning. The stated goal of the government was separate development of each group. However, Blacks were given the fewest resources, Coloureds and Asians slightly more but still fewer than what Whites received. The people in each group were forced to live in separate areas, and the children went to separate schools. There were massive inequalities and inconsistencies among the different segregated education departments. Education support services, including school psychological services, were most accessible to “White” learners.
Much began to change following the April 1994 election of the first democratic parliament after a protracted struggle for liberation that resulted in many organisations banned and people imprisoned and dying for their participation in the struggle. The first president of the democratic South Africa, Nelson Mandela, was freed in 1990 after 27 years in prison. Since 1994, there has been considerable change and transformation in South Africa to enable it to move toward becoming a nonracial, democratic country with a culture of human rights, respect for justice, and rule of law. Although great strides have been made, much still needs to be done to eradicate the legacy of apartheid.
South Africa has the most advanced economy on the African continent, including some world-class features. It has one of the top 10 stock exchanges in the world. South Africa is a country of contrasts, with a sophisticated financial and physical infrastructure, high-quality telecommunications, and electricity supply networks. However, these resources are often lacking in rural and disadvantaged areas.
Given its history of inequalities and the wide disparities of wealth, South Africa currently is facing its second revolution, namely, the challenge to transfer economic ownership to the formerly disadvantaged people through meaningful participation in the economy and skills acquisition. Under the leadership of President Mbeki, who took over from Nelson Mandela in 1999, South Africa also is committed to spearheading an African renaissance based on cooperative governance, extending democracy, and economic development throughout the subcontinent. Although many challenges still face the country, including the effects of globalisation, the digital divide, poverty, crime, HIV/AIDS (human immunodeficiency virus/acquired immunodeficiency syndrome), and creating conditions for sustainable development, South Africa has succeeded in laying the foundation for the nation’s individual and collective human potential to come to fruition. School psychology has a significant role to play in helping heal the wounds of the past, addressing the barriers to learning and development, and unleashing the potential of its children.
In 2002, there were 13,531,695 learners (a generic term for pupils and students) in educational institutions (Department of Education, 2004). Public ordinary schools provided education for 86% and private independent schools for 2% of these learners. Public ordinary schools are of three types: primary, middle/intermediate, and high schools. In 2002, there were 17,197 primary, 4,698 middle/intermediate, and 5,752 high schools. The remaining 12% of learners were in other types of educational institutions, which included 3,486 early childhood development centres, 1,895 adult basic education centres, 50 further education and training colleges, and 370 special education schools. There also were 36 higher education institutes, universities, and universities of technology (formerly known as tech-nikons) that were attended by 677,913 learners, accounting for 5% of the total learner population.
Formal education in South Africa is structured according to three levels: the general education and training band, the further education and training band, and the higher education band. The general education and training band includes the foundation phase (Grades R-3), intermediate phase (Grades 4-6), and senior phase (Grades 7-9). The preschool or reception year (Grade R) is being progressively implemented; it was started in 2002 and will be available in all schools by 2010. The first year of compulsory schooling is Grade 1. The age of compulsory school attendance begins the year the child turns 7, although children may begin school from age 5.5 years. The earliest age a learner may legally leave school is 15 or at the end of Grade 9.
The further education and training band is from Grades 10 to 12 in schools. Learners who choose to exit the schooling system at Grade 9 may continue their education at a further education and training college, which provides a more practical or technical education. Learners proceeding to Grade 12 who wish to continue into a higher education institute need to pass Grade 12 with a matriculation endorsement. The percentage of Grade 12 learners who receive matriculation endorsement is about 16% of the total who write the examination. If a learner starts school in Grade 1 at the age of 6 and does not repeat a grade, the average age of completing secondary school would be 18. However, the dropout rate is high: Only about 50% of learners who begin Grade 1 complete a secondary or equivalent education (Department of Education, 2004).
Primary schools generally are from Grades 1 through 7 and secondary schools from Grades 8 through 12. A number of middle/intermediate schools serve learners from Grades 7 or 8 through 9. State funding is provided to support a ratio of about 39 learners per educator in primary schools and 33 per educator in high schools. Principals and other members of the school management team are, however, included in these figures. Learner-to-teacher ratios increase when the management team does not, or is unable to, assume their full teaching load or where a shortage of classrooms exists, which is the case in many of the disadvantaged schools. School fees are payable at public schools. Fees are set by school governing bodies in consultation with parents. Recently, there has been a move to eliminate fees in certain schools in very poor communities; if this occurs, those schools will then receive additional state funding. More affluent public schools usually employ extra educators paid for by the parents via school fees, thereby reducing learner-to-teacher ratios.
There are 370 special education schools that serve 79,589 special needs learners, about 0.6% of the total school-age population (Department of Education, 2004). These mainly are learners with some form of disability (e.g., deafness, blindness, cerebral palsy) or those who have specific learning or behaviour difficulties. Schools tend to be located mainly in the former White areas, although integration of learners from other population groups has occurred.
Data on all aspects of special needs and specialised support are not being routinely kept. This sector has been quite separate and marginalised throughout the history of education. With the promulgation of the new policy in White Paper 6: Special Education. Building an Inclusive Education and Training System in 2001, this sector is slowly being brought into the mainstream. Thirty school districts have been chosen to field-test the recommendations of White Paper 6 (Department of Education, 2001). Two of these districts have been selected to develop holistically as model districts: Metropole South, an urban district in the Western Cape Province, and Siyanda, a rural district in the Northern Cape Province. Although data for all nine provinces are not readily available, some data on school psychological services have been obtained for these two districts.
In 2002, there were 100,242 students who completed qualifications for higher education. Major fields of study were science, engineering, and technology (39%) and business and management (39%). Humanities and social sciences accounted for 15% of total graduates and education for 15%. Only 7, 856 students obtained master’s or doctoral qualifications (Department of Education, 2004). The higher education system is currently being restructured to facilitate an increased participation rate, more comprehensive institutions, addressing of race and gender inequities, and additional support for postgraduate programmes and research (Government Communication and Information System, 2003).
Origin, History, and Current Status of School Psychology
The term school psychologist is used internally in the Department of Education to refer to those who provide psychological services to schools. Some are trained as psychologists and therefore are registered under the Health Professions Council of South Africa, a statutory body that is discussed later. Some school psychologists are registered in the educational psychologist category, and others may be in other categories, in particular, counselling and clinical psychology. In addition to the registered psychologists, there are those employed in school psychology posts who have an honours, bachelor of education, or equivalent 4-year degree trained as psychometrists or counsellors and registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa. The minimum qualification to work as a school psychologist in a school or district is registration as a counsellor or psy-chometrist. School psychologists may work in education districts as part of district-based support teams, at education department head offices, and at special schools (also called schools for learners with special education needs). Registered educational psychologists may work in the aforementioned formal education support system as well as in private practice, private schools, public ordinary schools paid for by parents via school governing bodies, nongovernmental organisations, universities, on the corporate sector. These distinctions are important to note when trying to understand the origin, history, and current status of school psychology in South Africa. In particular, knowledge of how educational Psychology and guidance and counselling have emerged within both the psychology profession and education contexts during the past century is important.
Education became the first field of practice for psychological intervention via psychometry (Louw, 1986). Schools were introduced to psychological testing in 1912, given the need to determine the extent of mental retardation in schools and to assess and diagnose children who required special classes and schools. In 1937, the first psychologist was appointed in what is now the Western Cape Province (Normand, 1993). The focus within the field of educational psychology in schools on testing and particularly on the development of instruments that would measure intelligence remained until the 1960s.
Alongside these developments, vocational guidance developed as an important school psychology service. The development and application of test batteries for vocational guidance began in 1922. In 1927, programmes for vocational guidance in primary and secondary schools were established. In 1936, the first education guidance officer was appointed in what is now Gauteng province. Personal issues, educational decisions, career choices, and remedial and therapeutic interventions were emphasised.
From 1948, with the coming to power of the Nationalist government and its apartheid ideology, the country’s education system began to be divided along racial lines. Education for Coloured, Indian, and Black learners was controlled nationally, whereas education for White learners was managed by provincial departments of education. Each White provincial department had its own system for allocating school psychologists. For example, in the early 1990s, there was about one school psychologist for every 5 to 10 schools in the Cape Province. Other education departments had much lower ratios. For example, in some Black areas there were ratios of 1 school psychologist to about 50 schools. School psychology services, particularly vocational guidance, were strongly influenced by ideology, such as job reservation and the intention to maintain the existing socioeconomic order.
Early in 1990, immediately preceding the radical change of government and the beginning of the dismantling of apartheid, the different threads of school psychology, including the focus on special needs and guidance and counselling, were investigated as part of the National Education Policy Investigation, which included a focus on support services. Policy proposals covering the various areas of school psychology were presented in this report (National Education Policy Investigation Report, 1992). In 1998, the Ministerial National Commission for Special Needs in Education and Training and National Committee for Education Support Services presented the minister of education with a report outlining policy guidelines for these interconnected areas (Department of Education, 1997). Most of the recommendations in this report were embraced in White Paper 6 on special education (Department of Education, 2001).
After 1994, school psychologists from the former segregated education departments who had worked at school clinics, child guidance clinics, education aid centres, area offices, and head offices were brought together in nonracial provincial education departments, usually into district-based or provincial teams. The qualifications, experience, and previous workload of the school psychologists differed widely. From the more advantaged ex-departments, there were the often highly qualified school psychologists who had time for much individual work and diagnostic, curative interventions. At the other end of the scale were school psychologists who often were less qualified and focused mainly on group interventions, for example, group intelligence testing.
In 1997, the National Commission for Special Needs in Education and Training and the National Committee for Education Support Services report estimated that about 50% of learners could be considered to experience barriers to learning and development (Department of Education, 1997). The report stated that “special needs” often arise as a result of barriers within the curriculum, the institution, the system of education, and the broader social context. Therefore, it was considered more appropriate in the South African context to use the expression “barriers to learning and development” than “special needs.” Barriers include socioeconomic factors and disabilities as well as language and communication, emotional, behavioural, and learning difficulties. With such a high prevalence of barriers and a shortage of specialists (particularly in disadvantaged and rural areas), models focusing on individualised specialised support for learners are no longer considered to be appropriate. Systemic barriers need to be identified and addressed as well. School psychologists have had to change their roles and responsibilities, and this change has presented major challenges for those who had provided primarily individually based services. School psychologists are attempting to redefine their roles and functions within a transformed education support system. This effort is supported by various national and provincial programmes aimed at facilitating the implementation of the new policy (Department of Education, 2001).
White Paper 6 (Department of Education, 2001) states that the education support service would have, as its core, district-based support teams whose primary function would be to support teaching, learning, and management by building the capacity of schools and other learning institutions to recognise and address learning difficulties and to accommodate a range of learning needs. Institutional-level support teams, also called Teacher or Education Support Teams in some provinces, are being created to address barriers. The primary function of this team is to put in place properly coordinated support services within the school. These teams receive support from the education district support teams, other government departments, those in the community who have skills and expertise, and other sources.
In this context, the role of specialised support service staff, including school psychologists, has had to shift from being reactive, problem oriented, and deficit based to being preventative, developmental, and asset based, providing assistance to support and develop capacity to address barriers to learning. This includes capacity-building through the facilitation of workshops aimed at building understanding of and addressing barriers, consultation with institution-based teams, and participation in task teams to improve curriculum access. Specialised staff also provide services such as assessment or counselling of learners who have been identified by the institution-based team as needing this kind of support.
A radical curriculum transformation occurred alongside policy developments affecting school psychology. This included the transformation of guidance and counselling into the now formally recognised learning area of Life Orientation—a compulsory subject at all levels of schooling. Linked to this development is the major national focus on HIV/AIDS education and other strategies located within the context of the Health-Promoting Schools framework (Department of Health, 2000).
Detailed statistics on school psychologists were not easily available from all provinces. In the Western Cape, which is probably the province with the most school psychology resources, in 2004, 76 school psychologists worked as part of district support teams. Thirty of these were registered as educational psychologists, 11 as counselling psychologists, and 1 as a clinical psychologist. The rest were psychometrists or counsellors. (B. Phillips, Western Cape Education Department, personal communication, September 2005). Each school psychologist served about 20 schools. By way of contrast, in the Northern Cape, which is a sparsely populated rural province spread over vast distances, out of 9 school psychologists, 3 were registered educational psychologists and each of the 9 served about 40 schools (H. Abbas, Northern Cape Education Department, personal communication, September 2005). The numbers of learners for whom school psychologists are responsible in the Western Cape and Northern Cape is approximately the same. Rural schools are small, more homogeneous, and far apart, whereas most of those in urban areas are large, close together, and have diverse populations.
In a district, the highest post level is usually that of director. Below the level of the education director are five post levels. Post level 4 usually is the highest level, reserved for a specialist in school psychology. Those school psychologists who progress higher than post level 4 are involved in more generalised education management. Senior school psychologists are appointed at this level with a salary range between R170,000 and R317,000 (US$25,475-US$46,410). School psychologists who are members of district support teams usually are appointed at post level 3, with a salary range between R140,000 and R203,000 (US$20,497-US$29,745). School psychologists at special schools usually are appointed at post level 2, with a salary range between R117,000 and R162,000 (US$17,130-US$23,718). In comparison, teachers are appointed at post level 1, heads of departments at post level 2, deputy principals or principals of small schools at post level 3, and principals of larger schools at post level 4. In the Western Cape Province, in which one of the proposed national model districts is located, a work-study investigation is being conducted on all specialised support service posts as a result of White Paper 6. Proposals have been tabled which may lead to the adoption of revised job descriptions for school psychologists and other specialised staff as well as new staffing models. This is discussed in more detail later in the chapter. This is the first work-study investigation since 2000, when the district-based support teams were constituted. In the interim, no school psychology posts were lost. This job stability for school psychologists may, however, not be the same in all provinces.
Infrastructure of School Psychology
As previously discussed, school psychologists are either registered educational, clinical, or counselling psychologists, or psychometrists. The registration of all school psychologists as registered psychologists would be preferable, ideally in the category educational psychology. However, in the two provinces surveyed, only about a third of school psychologists were registered educational psychologists. All psychologists, including educational psychologists, are required by law to register with the Health Professions Council of South Africa. This Council is a statutory body, established by the Health Professions Act 56 of 1974. Its purpose with regard to the health professions is to determine the standards of professional education and training and to promulgate and maintain standards of ethical and professional practice. The Professional Board for Psychology is one of several professional boards within the Health Professions Council. The Professional Board for Psychology is responsible for carrying out the duties of the Health Professions Council of South Africa with regard to psychology. The Professional Board for Psychology is mandated to exercise control and authority in terms of training of psychologists, psychometrists, and counsellors. Therefore, it evaluates all professional psychology training programmes for accreditation. Programs in educational psychology are reevaluated for accreditation every 5 years.
In September 2005, 1,178 psychologists were registered with the Professional Board for Psychology as educational psychologists (E. Wood, Health Professions Council of South Africa, personal communication, September 2005). Of these, 72% were female, and 84% work in three of the nine provinces that have a higher density of urbanisation: Gauteng (55%), KwaZulu-Natal (13%), and the Western Cape (17%). As previously mentioned, educators with additional training in psychometry also are employed by the provincial education departments as school psychologists. They are required to register as psychometrists or counsellors with the Professional Board for Psychology of the Health Professions Council of South Africa. In 2005, 2,088 were so registered.
A professional association, the Psychological Society of South Africa, is a separate entity that is responsible for the professional interests of practitioners. Although many psychologists are members of the association, membership is not compulsory. There is no national association of school psychologists or journal specifically dedicated to school psychology; rather, there are associations and journals for psychology generally. All psychologists, including educational psychologists, are subject to the code of conduct for psychologists prescribed by the Professional Board for Psychology. The code of conduct pertains to such aspects as professional competence; professional relations; privacy, confidentiality, and records; fees and financial arrangements; assessment activities; therapeutic activities; psycho-legal activities; advertising and public activities; teaching, training, and supervision; research and publication; and resolving ethical issues. Psychometrists and counsellors also are subject to a code of conduct and guidelines regarding their scope of practice as established by the Health Professions Council of South Africa. Apart from being registered with the Health Professions Council of South Africa, the Department of Education, as the employer of school psychologists, requires them to be registered as educators with the South African Council of Educators.
A system of continuous professional development is being introduced for all registered psychologists that will compel them to engage in a stipulated minimum of professional development activities annually in order to remain registered with the Health Professions Council. The education departments offer workshops for school psychologists; higher education institutions offer modules that can enhance capacity, skills, and expertise; and conferences are held that may include suitable presentations and workshops.
Preparation of Educational Psychologists
Students wanting to pursue a master’s in Psychology must have an honors degree in psychology or education as well as education experience. Should they intend to specialise in educational Psychology, they are required to have a professional teacher’s qualification before being admitted to the master’s programme. To qualify as educational psychologists, students must complete an accredited master’s programme in educational Psychology or psychology with a specialisation in educational psychology and an approved 1-year internship. The master’s-degree qualification is a postgraduate degree awarded after a minimum of 5 years of university study. The master’s-degree programme generally constitutes 1 year of course-work followed by a 1-year supervised internship and a mini-thesis. Thirteen universities offer full-or part-time accredited master’s programmes that lead to registration as educational psychologists. Some universities offer a specialised master’s programme in educational psychology. An example of such a programme is the one offered at Stellenbosch University. Those offering a specialisation within a general master’s programme in psychology, which prepares students as clinical, counselling, or educational psychologists, usually reserve a few places for educational psychology students. An example of such a programme is one offered at the University of the Western Cape.
The goal of the specialised master’s programme in educational psychology is to develop students both professionally and academically. The programme consists of coursework and a research component. The research component encompasses a thesis, which contributes 50% toward the final mark. The coursework is offered full-time over 1 year or part-time over 2 years. The thesis can be completed simultaneously with the coursework or as soon as possible thereafter. The degree is awarded on completion of the coursework and thesis. The completion of at least the coursework allows students to access internships in educational psychology service settings, such as those at universities, within the Department of Education, or in private practice. The internship has to include learning opportunities in assessment, therapy, and community involvement. Completion of an approved internship is a prerequisite for registration.
The programme aligns competencies with those prescribed by the Health Professions Council of South Africa for educational psychologists. Competencies include the identification, assessment, diagnosis, planning, and implementation of services in response to educational and psychological needs of learners, schools, families, and communities.
The content of the programme may vary in focus and emphasis, depending on whether it is a specialised educational psychology master’s programme or a programme that offers a specialisation within a more generic training programme. The programmes offered at Stellenbosch University (i.e., specialised educational Psychology master’s degree) and the University of the Western Cape (i.e., psychology master’s degree with specialisation in educational psychology) include the following core curricula: psychopathology in children and adults; educational and psychological assessment (e.g., intellectual, academic, personality, behavioural, systemic); educational and learning support; approaches to psychotherapy/counselling/emotional assistance; methods to facilitate development in school and community contexts; research methods (i.e., theoretical and methodological traditions, developing research proposals, qualitative and quantitative approaches to research, data collection and analysis, writing the thesis); a practicum and fieldwork to develop skills related to core competencies relating to the theoretical modules (i.e., integration of knowledge, skills, and values acquired in the theoretical work with professional practice); and special educational needs (i.e., inclusive education, understanding educational psychology as a science and profession, understanding special needs, with an emphasis on disabilities and high risk).
The second year comprises an internship at an institution accredited by the Professional Board for Psychology. A thesis is a required component of the master’s degree in psychology and composes 50% of a student’s grade.
The preparation of educational psychologists is labor-intensive and underscores a lack of human and material resources to prepare sufficient numbers of professionals to service the needs of an already undersupplied school population. Training institutions are challenged to review degree structures as well as the content and process of training (Donald, 1991). Donald recommends shorter programmes that focus strongly on basic and accessible mental health services in schools, with a strong emphasis on community and family interventions, intersec-toral collaboration, and proactive, preventative, and consultative work with teachers and schools. Others (e.g., Suffla & Seedat, 2004) advocate the need to adopt a community psychology orientation in the training and practice of psychology. This is particularly needed for those choosing to work in schools where there are high client-practitioner ratios.
Roles, Functions, and Responsibilities of School Psychologists
School psychologists deliver both direct and indirect services. Services include counselling or therapy with individuals and/or groups of learners; psychoeducational assessments; and working with, and supporting the efforts of, parents, educators, principals, and others involved in working with children. Such work includes workshops; individual or school systems consultation, often via Institution-Level Support Teams; and developing and supporting collaborative initiatives. Prevention services are becoming more important, with emphasis on mental health promotion and the establishment of health-promoting schools.
Assessment techniques used include standardised instruments and tests constructed by the school psychologists themselves. Achievement is assessed through the use of various locally developed scholastic tests that assess reading, spelling, and mathematical ability. Portfolios of learners’ work often are used, thus providing curriculum-based assessments. There is an emphasis placed on this type of assessment in White Paper 6. Intellectual abilities may be assessed through the use of the Junior South African Individual Scale and the Senior South African Individual Scale-Revised. Personality and temperament are assessed through the use of the Draw-A-Person Test, Kinetic Family Drawings, Kinetic School Drawings, Children’s Apperception Test, Thematic Apperception Test, High School Personality Questionnaire, Sixteen Personality Factor Questionnaire, Children’s Personality Inventory, and the Murphy-Meisgeier Type Indicator for Children. Behaviour and social skills may be assessed through the Connors Rating Scales. Other assessments may include the Survey of Study Habits and Attitudes, the Beery Test of Visual Motor Integration, the Bender-Gestalt Test, and genograms.
The draft report of the work-study investigation in the Western Cape, based on White Paper 6, has formulated the following job purpose and proposed the following roles and responsibilities for school psychologists working as part of district-based support teams. Their job purpose is to provide psychoeducational and psychotherapeu-tic/counselling support within a whole-school context to educators, parents, and learners through institution level support teams. Their proposed roles and responsibilities include designing and developing learning and developmental programmes, conducting psychoeducational assessments and evaluations, providing therapeutic interventions, developing schools and other role players’ knowledge and understanding on psychosocial and related issues that create barriers to learning and development, providing community outreach, and promoting organisational and systems development. Currently, there is no standardised national job description for school psychologists. Thus, school psychology practices may differ considerably among provinces and even among districts.
Thirty districts in the country are field-testing proposals expressed in White Paper 6 (Department of Education, 2001). Some have already started implementing a more consultative preventative model of specialised support service provision. School psychologists accustomed to the old model of service delivery that focused mainly on assessment for placement in special classes and schools and provision of psychotherapy with individuals have had to undergo a major reorientation. School psychologists are not the only staff responsible for addressing barriers. They collaborate with other staff that compose district-based support teams (e.g., learning support advisers, social workers, HIV/AIDS advisers, curriculum advisers, therapists, circuit managers, information technology advisers, administration advisers) who have also had to adjust to new service delivery models and methods. The manner in which school psychologists may work in the 30 districts identified for field-testing of the new policy is described next.
Each school psychologist will be part of a district-based support team that services a cluster of schools. Each school has an institution level support team the members of which are interested educators, one preferably a member of the school’s management team. After a teacher has been unsuccessful in addressing the learning barrier after trying various interventions, she or he may request that the institution level support team recommend additional methods that may be helpful. If the difficulty still is not overcome, the district support team may be requested to join the institution level support team in a consultancy role. The district team usually includes a school psychologist. As a result of these discussions, a school psychologist may arrange a workshop to assist educators to better address the barrier, work with a group of learners, do an assessment, assist with curriculum adaptation, network with other government departments or community organisations to find assistance for the school, or refer the learner to a special school or specialised programme or to the management of the district for systemic intervention through the use of an existing or new programme. Traumatic incidents or emergencies (e.g., child abuse or a shooting incident) are somewhat common in some crime-ridden areas. Following these events, a school psychologist or social worker is involved directly, and a referral to an educational support team is bypassed.
With schools becoming more integrated in South Africa, school psychologists have found working with learners who speak languages different from their own to be quite a challenge, particularly when engaging in direct work such as assessments or counselling. Presenting workshops, “giving away” skills to educators (which has been the purview of the specialists), relying less on psychometrics and more on learners’ work and portfolios to make an assessment of the barrier, and working in a multidisciplinary or multifunctional team have also been very challenging for some.
Due to the high level of need and the shortage of human resources, the previously used model for delivering school psychological services has become untenable. Many school psychologists who have made the shift to the new model report a higher level of job satisfaction and a feeling that they are making a difference to educators and learners, to their colleagues on the team, and, in some cases, to the education system as whole.
Current Issues Impacting School Psychology
The numerous challenges currently impacting school psychology can be clustered into two broad categories: resource challenges and challenges related to the changing role of school psychologists in the South African context. The lack of human and financial resources at various levels in the education system has a negative impact on the preparation and training of educational psychologists at tertiary institutions and also affects the employment opportunities of school psychologists within state-supported institutions. This has resulted, in a serious shortage of educational psychologists, given the needs of learners, their families, educators, and schools. The fact that a large number of individuals employed as school psychologists lack proper professional qualifications presents an added complexity with regard to the capacity of such human resources to deliver support services within education.
The changing role of educational psychologists presents serious challenges at the level of school psychology training and practice. The academic and professional preparation of educational psychologists requires shifts in perspective and focus. Serious consideration must be given to how professionals can be equipped to meet the vast educational, psychological, and social needs in the schools and homes of the majority of children. A call for a new service delivery model—one that is preventative, consultative, and community based—is clear, and training programmes must take cognizance of these approaches (Donald, 1991; Pillay, 2003; Sharratt, 1995).
Furthermore, a move to more broad-based styles of practice will be difficult unless changes occur in the demands and expectations of educational leaders who employ educational psychologists, parents, teachers, and even educational psychologists themselves. To this end, the transition to a new service delivery model that incorporates a more consultative approach, the implementation of inclusive education, and advocacy on the part of educational psychologists as to what they have to offer in multidisciplinary settings are crucial. Despite all of these challenges, in those locations where educational psychology has become more attuned to the current realities, it is being heralded as leading the vanguard for a contextually relevant, progressive application of psychology and psychological practice in South Africa.