Revisiting the staff to student ratio outcomes of the HOCS Survey 2018

Abstract

The reporting on the data for Q.25 of the ANZSSA Heads of Counselling Services HOCS Benchmarking Survey 2018 Summary Report as published in JANZSSA April Issue 1 2019 needs and deserves clarification. This article provides that clarification, some critical wording correction and some additional comparative data to highlight with more specificity on how institutions responding to the 2018 HOCS Survey either met or did not, meet, criteria to satisfy the international and national best practice standards for FTE staffing to enrolled student ratios for counselling services in post-secondary education. The institutional data identifies staffing levels and the number of students enrolled and does not identify responding institutions by name. Based on the HOCS survey returns it is concluded that none of the institutions met the international best practice standards for staffing FTE to enrolled student ratio of 1 to 1,000-1,500 and very few institutions achieved the ANZSSA best practice standard of 1 to 3,000.