The participants in the Malaysia–Taiwan Counseling Teachers Training Workshop

The Malaysia–Taiwan Counseling Teachers Training Workshop was held in Perak in Malaysia from January 8 to January 10, 2021 with the collaborative assistance of the Education Division of the Taipei Economic and Cultural Office (TECO) in Malaysia, and the Organization of Taiwan Education and Cultural, Malaysia. 

Counselors and counseling teachers play an extremely important role in the education system today. Students and educators are all facing different levels of anxiety and stress as a result of the long battle with COVID-19 and the unclear direction their future might take, and so the demand for counseling teachers and the need for these professionals to improve their counseling skills and methods have increased since the outbreak of the pandemic. 

The Counseling Teachers’ Training Workshop was designed to provide a platform for the participants to enhance their professional counseling skills and knowledge and gain some different perspectives. The organizer invited both local speakers and international speakers from Yuan Ze University, Kun Shan University, and TransWorld University in Taiwan to conduct classes and teaching activities, and 120 teachers, headmasters, and education inspectors from all states of Malaysia took part.

The COVID-19 pandemic has also made holding training workshops much more challenging than in previous years. Hybrid classes are the new normal and this training workshop had both traditional face-to-face classes, and online classes. The face-to-face classes were conducted in strict compliance with all the standard operating procedures to prevent the spread of COVID-19.

The speakers from the three universities in Taiwan were unable to enter Malaysia currently because of the current Movement Control Order and so they conducted their classes online. 
The three-day workshop was a great success. The participants provided a lot of positive feedback and the knowledge and practical details shared are expected to provide beneficial tools for the counselors and counseling teachers when they conduct counseling sessions with students and colleagues in their schools.