Introduction:
Education is the process of a human being influencing to other to achieve the desired goals, and the clarity of these goals is the only guarantee for directing the learning process in a scientific, practical and humane way to achieve these goals. Universities, being one of the educational institutions of any society, their responsibility and mission are no longer limited to the cognitive or mental aspect only, but rather It included the students’ habits, values, behavior and attitudes.
The university, as the educational institution that contributes to the upbringing of new generations, their social normalization, and the organization of university operations in creating and preparing the educational climate, its function is to coordinate and organize students’ aptitudes and inclinations between the influence of different social environments and to direct them by using them to be foundations for directed education. Therefore, it has become necessary for the university to organize its goals. Its curricula and means serve its new goals because it is one of the scientific means of sustainable education.
Since the university is an educational institution that exists to serve the community in which it exists, it derives its philosophy from the philosophy of the community to which it belongs, and then it builds its curricula and formulates its educational methods so that its mission to society succeeds.
The university stage is an essential stage in shaping the individual’s future personality. The crises that human societies experience over time and from the first years of societies’ existence, including economic, political and social crises, leave a major rift in the attitudes, values and customs of individuals, especially adolescents and young people.
In Iraq, as a result of the difficult, unnatural living conditions that our country is going through and imposed on it, the various segments of society, including the segment of university students, are exposed to great psychological pressure due to the current situation. The prevailing values and standards were affected, and the tendencies of many individuals began to move toward anti-socialism. Complaints escalated from multiple parties about segments abandoning social relations. Young people lose their sense of responsibility and their tendency towards not adhering to many standards, regulations and laws.
The importance of the university stage because it prepares the community’s youth and qualifies them to manage community affairs in all fields. If society wants to advance or develop, it must care about university students, so it is necessary to change some of their negative practices in order to prepare them in a way that is compatible with the development and advancement of society.
University counseling is of particular importance, as it is concerned with an important segment of society, namely the segment of students (university students) who will be the leaders of society. It is their responsibility to complete the process of construction and progress with integrity and psychological and mental balance. In addition, university guidance does not neglect other segments of the university and is concerned with developing their capabilities, such as university professors.
When it was established, the Department of Psychological Counseling and Educational Guidance at Al-Bayan University has worked diligently to study and address many of the problems facing the university student in the ninth colleges of our university in the morning and evening studies, whether these problems are psychological, social, academic, or vocational. This is done through a number of axes that the division seeks to develop on an ongoing basis and to apply the resulting experiences in this specialty to practical reality that will be capable of guiding students and developing them towards the best, and in cooperation with the psychological counseling and educational guidance units in the faculties of our university, as shown below:
Vision:
The effective integration of the student with his academic environment to achieve the highest rates of success, as the Division of Psychological Counseling and Educational Guidance at Al Bayan University aspires to provide distinguished academic guidance services based on scientific foundations, and to provide training and guidance programs, guidance services, and achieving compatibility for all academically struggling students, the outstanding and gifted, and those with special needs. Identifying their potential and helping them overcome everything that hinders their progress.
Mission:
The Department of Psychological Counseling and Educational Guidance at Al Bayan University is committed to providing training, guidance and academic programs, guidance and psychological counseling services, and caring for students who excel academically, as well as recognizing and caring for individual differences.
Objectives:
The Department of Psychological Counseling and Educational Guidance at Al Bayan University aims to follow up on students’ problems, contain them, find appropriate solutions to them with the academic advisor, and discuss unacceptable cases among student circles with the aim of addressing them and highlighting them through seminars, lectures, and workshops whose goal is to raise awareness, encourage and highlight individual initiatives, and implement annual programs in The field of caring for outstanding students and following up on cases of tardiness and absence, in addition to preventive programs, as well as participation in sports, artistic and community activities.
Defining the concept of psychological counseling and educational guidance:
Psychological counseling and educational guidance are defined as a planned and organized educational process that aims to help the student understand himself and what is around him, and solve his problems objectively, which contributes to his personal growth and social, educational and professional development. This is done through a human relationship between him and the guide, who is responsible for pushing the counseling process towards achieving its goal with his professional expertise.
Activities :
Psychological Counseling department at Al Bayan University seeks, in accordance with the directives issued by the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research/the Scientific Supervision and Evaluation Agency, to hold seminars, workshops and lectures for students, professors and officials of guidance units periodically according to a pre-prepared annual plan that encourages study and respect for university laws and rejects extremism, division and negative situations in society. The Division is also interested in publishing educational, psychological, social and health posters that will achieve good and appropriate awareness for students. University guidance also seeks to encourage the establishment of various cultural, sporting and artistic student activities.
The university’s annual scientific plan includes holding many seminars on the topics of psychological, educational, and social counseling, and it addresses topics of importance and relevance to the topics of psychological and legal counseling, as follows:
- Preparing the required records.
- Holding periodic meetings with the officials of Psychological Counseling units in colleges to follow up the progress of work.
- The harms of using social media and its impact on the student’s psychological, social, and academic adjustment.
- Blood donation campaign
- The concept of guidance, its justifications, the need for guidance, and its goals.
- Receiving and welcoming new students and introducing them to the scientific departments.
- The guidance interview, its types, objectives, steps for conducting it, factors for its success and guidance interview techniques.
- An advisory lecture for first-year students, urging them to adhere to instructions and work hard.
- A reading of the student discipline law in institutions of the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research.
- Smoking and its health harms.
- Time Management.
- The phenomenon of drug and psychotropic substance abuse in Iraqi society.
- Tolerance and rejection of violent extremism in universities.
- Placing posters and flexes in university courtyards and the entrances and corridors of colleges urging the pursuit of knowledge and tolerance.
- Terrorism, religious and intellectual extremism.
- Homosexuality, its causes, purpose and goals, and treatment.
- Liability arising from electronic blackmail as a societal phenomenon.
