Counselling competences from the perspective of school pedagogues

The paper starts from the point of view on the necessity and importance of continuous improvement of the school counsellor competences for the effective counselling in schools. In this framework, a survey was conducted aimed at examining the opinions of school teachers on their own advisory competencies and resources for their improvement. By using the semi-structured interview, 81 elementary school pedagogues were examined, and the obtained results were analysed using a qualitative thematic analysis. It was found that respondents recognised the necessity and the importance of a continuous development of competences for the effective counselling. Competences that were recognised as sufficiently developed by the respondents were predominantly personal qualities and social-communication competences, and as underdeveloped they emphasised professional competences related to the application of modern methods and techniques of counselling. The respondents perceive the possibility of improving of the counselling competences through the prism of raising the quality of different aspects - from initial education to the conditions of school work and adequate professional development, with special emphasis on the quality of professional development programmes in this field. It was concluded that the development of counselling competences implies systematically based and continuous support, both in the process of improving professional competencies, as well as in the process of personal growth and the development of experts/counsellors.