Identifying the school counselor's self-efficacy in multicultural counseling competencies

INTRODUCTION In the era of globalization and technology, education is becoming easier and accessible from every corner of the world. Due to the advantage of International, Central and State education boards, every student is been able to access education from anywhere in the world without having the issue of changes in the academic curriculum. School is the place where students from every background study together under one roof. In this scenario, it is important to see whether they have been educated and taught well. School counselor plays significant role in dealing with all students' issues without being non-judgmental to their background or socioeconomic status. As India is been evolving with diverse culture in terms of religion, race, caste, language, life style and values, school counselors need to have the necessary knowledge, skills, and awareness to provide multi culturally competent counseling. One of the major challenges school counselors face is uncertainty about whether they are sufficiently prepared to meet the needs of multiracial, multilingual, and multicultural students. Without training experience in the issues of this population, school counselors generally feel that they lack the knowledge and skills necessary to serve students from diverse background. In the professions of counseling psychology, mental health, and education, culture and its relationship to sound practice in these fields have been studied for decades. School counseling services have been in effect since the mid-1960s and the need for multicultural competent counselors was recognized even then. 1.1 PSYCHOLOGY IN INDIA In the Indian context we can see that for more than ten decade psychology especially academics continued to be a foreign discipline. Looking at the history of psychology in India the seeds of psychology was first planted in Calcutta University in 1916 that had western,