The field of Rehabilitation Counselling in Malaysia is still in the progress of

expanding. “Although several universities offer counsellor education programs, these

programs are not designed to address the disability population's unique vocational
rehabilitation counselling needs. The curriculum of a typical counsellor education
program reflects an adaptation of coursework from other helping fields, such as guidance
and counselling, social work, and counselling psychology.” (Chen, R. K., Jo, S. & Ong,
L. Z., 2007)This shows that in Malaysia, the Education System still has not made any
effort in offering Rehabilitation Counselling in the universities. Although those who are
interested in Rehabilitation Counselling, they will either have to undertake Masters in
Rehabilitation Counselling in other countries or they will be assigned to the rehabilitation
centres, for example The Blind Centre to become the counsellors there. At the centre, the
counsellor will be required to attend extra courses such as Braille writing and other extra
courses. Although there are degrees in counselling and psychology offered in Malaysia,
none of them focus on Rehabilitation Counselling.
Among the local universities, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) offers
Masters in Guidance and Counselling in the School of Education. Before that, the
students may also take Psychology Program or Social Work Program in the School of
Psychology and Human Development which touches a little bit of here and there about
rehabilitation and counselling. There is also offered Doctor of Philosophy in Guidance
and Counselling in UKM but it is still not really close to rehabilitation counselling unless
if the research field chosen is in rehabilitation. But this does not give the students the
qualification required in order to become a rehabilitation counsellor.
In University of Malaya (UM), there is offered Bachelor of Counselling as a
degree program. The career prospects are as such:

• School Career Counsellor

• Guidance Counsellor
• School Counselling Supervisor
• Motivational Speaker
• Student & School Counsellor
• Children's Trauma Counsellor
(Source from University of Malaya, 2008)
From there onwards, the students may also further study in the same university in
Masters of Counselling. UM also offers Doctors of Philosophy where the students will be
required to complete all the course works and one of the course works is PPHD 7301 -
Rehabilitation Counselling of Substance Abuse and Addiction. This is the first
rehabilitation counselling course offered in Doctors of Philosophy among the local
universities.

Bachelor of Counselling with Honours is offered in Universiti Utara Malaysia

(UUM). It also offers Masters of Science Counselling where students may further study
as well. UUM does not offer any Doctors of Philosophy programme for counselling nor
rehabilitation.

In conclusion, Malaysian local universities have not yet focus on Rehabilitation

Counselling. The future path of Rehabilitation Counselling is still vague and needs to be
specified by the education system in the local tertiary education.

References
Chen, R. K., Jo, S. & Ong, L. Z. (2007). Rehabilitation services and education in four
Asian countries: Thailand, South Korea, Singapore, and Malaysia. Retrieved July
21, 2009 from http://www.cpiasia.org

Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia. (2008). Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities.

Retrieved July 24, 2009 from
http://www.fssk.ukm.my/index.php/academic/undergraduate-programme

University of Malaya. (200). List of programmes. Retrieved July 24, 2009 from
 http://www.um.edu.my/professionals/ips/list_programmes/faculties/fac_prog_deta
ils.php?intPrefLangID=1&intRecordID=122

Universiti Utara Malaysia. (2009). Masters of Science Counselling – Coursework.

Retrieved July 22, 2009 from http://cas.uum.edu.my/?page=pri&pid=119