New counselors busy at work at the session.

St. George’s Grenada, Wednesday February 24th 2010 – The Ministry of Education and Human Resource Development is providing more support services to aid students in the pursuit of their academic goals.

The Ministry has just completed an orientation session for five new schools’ counselors. They’ll be working with students whose education is being affected because of such things as personal, family and behavioral problems.

Mr. Pearson Stroud, head of the Student Support Services Unit, said the additional counselors will ensure that daily challenges that some students confront will be dealt with in a more timely and effective manner.

Counselors, including John Lewis of the Happy Hill Secondary School, welcomed the orientation session, saying they are now better placed to execute their jobs.

“This is my first orientation and it was very useful,’’ he said. “We would benefit a lot from this orientation.”

Nadina Williams of Bishop’s College in Carriacou was also high in praise for the initiative, saying the orientation “helped answer a lot of questions as well as address a lot of issue.  It’s been pretty educational as well as informative.”

The orientation session was also highly rated by Lenise Williams of St. John’s Christian Secondary School, and Shelly-Ann Mason of the Grenada Boys’ Secondary School.

“The session was very edifying and we learnt a lot in terms of our role as counselors in the school system,’’ Ms. Mason said.