Abstract:

The quality of basic education in south Africa has been reported to be in crisis. There have been various reports of violence in schools, abuse, teenage pregnancy, sexual harassment, high learner dropouts, and poor academic performances. These psycho-social ills have negative influences on how learners perform on scholastic tasks, resulting in poor academic performance. This paper aims to discuss how school-based counselling intervention programs are mandatory for the improvement of the quality of basic education in South Africa. This paper used desktop research methodology. It firstly discussed the role and responsibilities of school counselors. Secondly, it reviewed various published research reports that researched on the importance and effectiveness of school-based counselling programmes. It provided an argument of how the implementation of school-based counselling programs will in-turn improve the quality of basic education in South Africa. This paper concludes that school-based counselling programmes could help learners in South Africa deal with the various psycho-social problems that continually obstructs them from performing to their full potential in scholastic tasks.

Keywords:

Psycho-social, Counselling Programmes, South Africa, Schools