Counselor Professional Identity of Counselor Profession Education

This paper describes professional identity of counselor educators teaching ina counselor profession education in Indonesia. The counselor identitiy was explored using a self-reported semi-open questionnaire and a focus-group discussion.Using the questionnaire, the couselors self-assessed their competency level of 75 competence-statement based on government's regulation. Their self-assessed level of competencies was compared to factors like age, teaching experiences, professional development as well as their self-efficacy toward the counselor competencies mandated by government. To confirm the survey findings, a focus-group discussion was held and revealed culture-specific competencies that were not explicated in the regulation but deemed an important characteristic of the counselors' identity. The study found that the counselors described themselves having average level of the mandated competencies and developing culture-specific competency related to technology literacy. The findings provide recommendation to set up context-suited professional development training that prepare the counselors for teaching in the profession training.


INTRODUCTION
Counseling-related professionals have often shared a similar story of having to struggle to be acknolwedged as a distinct professional specialty (Calley & Hawley, 2008) and of lacking communal awareness of counseling role (Woo, Henfield, & Choi, 2014). School counselors are among those who suffered the absence of legal recognitionthe most in Indonesia despite the fact that their roles have been found to have significant support to students in reaching their psychological maturity, including personality, social and academic skills, as well as their awareness of career options available to them (Aluede, Imonikhe, & Afen-Akpaida, 2007;Rahman, 2010;Kartadinata, 2011). Despite being a compulsory student development program, counseling services are often taken lightly at Indonesian schoolsin that they are seen as secondary or optional. As a result, counseling roles are taken for granted and counselor roles are considered unimportant. School counselors in Indonesia have long struggled with this stigma of low-status.This is made worse as many schools assigned counseling tasks to teachers without degree in Guidance and Counseling in spite of the fact that µFRXQVHORUV DSSHDU WR EH DQ HIIHFWLYH ZD\ RI LPSURYLQJ DFDGHPLF DFKLHYHPHQW ¶ (Carrell & Hoekstra, 2014, p:68). If a school had no counselor, any teacher would take over the job. In many schools LQ ,QGRQHVLD ¶V UHPRWH RU XQGHUSULYLOHJHG areas, it has also been a common practice to label subject teachers a school counselor, simply to meet administrative demand.
The poor recognition of school counselors slightly began to change though not until 2008 has Indonesian government made the status of school counselors equal to professional teachers (the regulation of Minister of National Education and Culture, number 27 Year 2008 on Standards of Academic Qualifications andCounsellors Competences). This act has brought two changes at least: that school counselors must have a degree in Guidance and Counseling and that school FRXQVHORUV KDYH WR EH µFHUWLILHG ¶ DV professional educators by means of attending a counselor profession education program.
The law therefore refutes long-held view of counseling as a secondary and add-on job, usually assigned to religion and civics subject teachers, or hometeacher. It legitimizes professional trainings for pre-service and in-service school counselors and gives them status µSURIHVVLRQDO ¶ DV ZHOO DV image of being µSULPDU\ ¶ 'HPDQGLQJ FRXQVHORUV WR provide research-based and structured counseling services, the regulation also requires every counselor to attend profession education program to improve their professionalism and quality of services that they provide. According to Ministrial Regulation of Education and Culture 2009 No. 8 on Profession Education Program (article 2), The objectives of the program isto generate professional teachers/counselors who havecompetences in a) planning, b) implementing, and c) assessing learning and d) following up the assessment results, e) guiding and f) training the students, g) conducting research, and h) developing continuous professionalism.
In particular, a decree regulating management of profession education program for counselors (Ministrial Decree of National Education and Culture No. 9/2010, article 2) specifies its two-fold goal. First, the program aims to equip preand in-service counselors with field and practical experiences and skills like VXUYH\LQJ FOLHQW ¶V QHHG IRU FRXQVHOLQJ planning and executing counseling services with different methods and assessing the effectiveness of the given services at various levels of education. Secondly, it seeks to produce counselors, graduating from Guidance and Counseling Department, who are able to perform independent guidance and counselling services using the four components, of which are basic services, responsive services, individual planning and supporting systems.This means universities that provide profession education for school counselors are responsible for yielding professionally competent counselors. This starts undoubtedly with a competent group of counselor educators who teach in counselor profession education program.
With the birth of the laws, school counselors in Indonesia started to develop a sense of belonging to the newly legallyrecognized profession. It distinguishes their roles from other subject teachers at school and underscores their distinct and specific qualification of guidance and counseling background. Most importantly it makes the required profession training to become a school counselor a national agenda.Such agenda necessitates not only state-owned curriculum but also the preparedness of counselor educators to comply with the curriculum while performing their teaching responsibilities in the training. In the meantime, the disappearance of the low-status stigma and add-on role of school counselors has also triggered the development of identity as a µSURIHVVLRQDO ¶ SURIHVVLRQ H[SHULHQFHG E\ both school counselors and counselor educators. As counselor educators are responsible in producing professional school counselors, it is important that the educators develop professional identity in the first place. This later will affect the development of their students, who are future school counselors. In addition, a strong professional identity will help the members of the profession to not only survive but also grow stronger and have an impact in shaping the direction of national educational agenda (Calley & Hawley, 2008).
Given these, depicting their professional identity in term of their level of preparedness as counselor educators in the program is necessary to produce professional counselors ready to provide excellent services at schools. Brott & Myers (Woo, et al., 2014) define SURIHVVLRQDO LGHQWLW\ DV ³D FRJQLWLYH IUDPH of reference from which counselors carry RXW SURIHVVLRQDO UHVSRQVLELOLWLHV´ :KLOH this reference is changing throughout FRXQVHORUV ¶ SURIHVVLRQDO MRXUQH\ Brott & Myers emphasize its role in shaping how counselors perceive about their academic tasks, their performance level, and philosophical rationales behind their professional acts. When counselors are well aware of the required or expected competencies they must have to serve well in the program, they not only can selfmeasure their preparedness level to do their professional responsibilities but also seek ways to help them improve professionally.
The main goal of the practice of guidance and counselling in Indonesian schools is to foster students to develop independence necessary for their growth, self-actualization and capacity development, in attaining graduate competence (Regulation of Minister of National Education and Culture No. 23/2006;Dikti, 2008;Kartadinata, 2011). Hence, counseling services focus on coping with psychological problems that might possibly appear in the studentV ¶ life andgrowth throughout their education (Ivey & Goncalves, 1987;Donohue, Goodman-Scott, & Betters-Bubon, 2015).
In Indonesia, a undergraduate student taking a bachelor degree in Guidance and Counseling do not have license to provide counseling. Though graduated of bachelor degree in Guidance and Counseling, graduates are deemed not sufficiently equipped with practical and field skills in providing counseling services in various educational levels. By law, they need to attend counselor profession education that completes the theoretical understanding of the graduates with the required practical competences. One critical stage in thecounseling profession education program implementation is counseling practicum (Aman & Ahmad, 2010), whose success relies much on the quality of counselor educators who serve as supervisors and help bridge the gap between academic preparation and reality of counseling jobs at schools (Donohue, et al., 2015). It is thus critical to describe their professional identity by means of measuring their perceived competence level against the required set of competencies as a counselor educator.
The competences of counselor educators are outlined in the Ministrial Regulation of Education and Culture No. 27/2008 (ibid). They include a) in depth understanding of the learners, b) mastery of guidance and counselling theories, c) skills in performing guidance and counselling learning program and services, d) skills in supervising the participants in the counseling profession education program, e) willingness to do researchand community service, and f) continuous professional development. While the research counselor educators in the study have been well-aware of the competences, whether they feel that they have actually acquired them and how much competent they feel they are need further investigation for few reasons. First, given the developing recognition of school FRXQVHORUV IURP µQRQ-FHUWLILHG ¶ LQWR µFHUWLILHG DQG SURIHVVLRQDO ¶ VWDII professional identity of counselor educators are likely to change. This necessitates further exploration especially how counselor educators react to this transformation task. Next, the development of counselor educators in Indonesia is culturally-specific in that the required competencies of counselor educators are set by the government. Exploring the development of their professional identity informs the design of professional development program for counselor educators.
Surveying their realized professional identity will portray that of larger group of counselor educators especially in Asian contexts where regulation plays considerable role in their professional growth. This study thus addressed the following problems: (1) what competences do the counselor educator believe as required for those teaching in the counselor profession education program?
(2) how do the counselor educators self-perceive their competence levels against the set of competences outlined by the regulation and how does their perception shape their professional identity ? and, (3) what are the recommendations to prepare the counselor educators teaching in the program? It is hoped that this survey result provides direction in providing training for sustaining professional development of counselor educators.
While school counselors taking 0DVWHU ¶V DQG 'RFWRUDWH GHJUHHV KDYH EHHQ widely researched in term of their competencies, changing professional identity and development (Perusse, Poynton, Parzych, & Goodnough, 2015;Gibson, Dollarhide, & Moss, 2013), UHVHDUFK RQ FRXQVHORU HGXFDWRUV ¶ competencies has however not been widely done, especially in higher education in Indonesia. It is due possibly to that while counselor profession training has been a common practice in other countries, it is relatively a new agenda in Indonesia. Adding to this is that taking profession training of counselors is GLIIHUHQW IURP GRLQJ D 0DVWHU ¶V RU Doctorate degree in counseling. The training is non-degree and lasts only a year or two semesters. If a counselor has a 0DVWHU ¶V GHJUHH EXW KDV QRW DWWHQGHG profession training, s/he has not been FRQVLGHUHG DV µSURIHVVLRQDO ¶ RU µFHUWLILHG ¶ Unfortunately, many school counselors in Indonesia have not attended counselor profession education and are thus not yet FRQVLGHUHG µSURIHVVLRQDO ¶ VFKRRO counselors. Added to this is the fact that only selected universities are permitted by the government to provide counselor profession education including the university where this research was undertaken (Ministrial Decree of National Education and Culture No. 126P/P, 2010). This makes research on the management and supervision of the program thus a new area which needs further investigation. Higgins, Veach, MacFarlane, Borders, LeRoy, & Callanan (2013) focusing on genetic counseling supervisors surveying their perception of required competencies, against a set of competencies drawn from a supervising body in genetic counseling and different literatures in the area. A two-round Delphy study was carried out in addition to content DQDO\VLV RQ WKH GDWD 6LPLODU WR +LJJLQV ¶ this reported study aimed at exploring the consensus among counselor educators in term of required competencies for them to be able to teach in the program or to carry out supervising job. A measure was also used in the study to ensure the reliability of data, by administering Cronbach alphatest to the questionnaire. While Higgins arranged a stratified sampling technique and content-analysis for meeting the validity of data and interpretation, this study did focus group discussion to clarify UHVHDUFK VXEMHFW ¶V UHVSRQVHV )RFXV JURXS was used given the small number of respondents which returned the questionnaire.
In educational context, competencies of counselors practicing at schools have been widely investigated. Ooi, Marzuki, Wan, & Baba (2017) for example, have surveyed a large group of 541counselors in Malaysian schools and described their selfefficacy level in providing counseling services as well as the sources of the reported self-efficacy levels. Given a questionnaire, the teachers responded to four identified sources of self-efficacy including mastery experience, social persuasion, and physiological and affective state. The findings further informed schools in providing assistance and supports to teacher counselors in order to increase their self-efficacy level so as to maintain their excellent counseling services at school. Similar to the study in Malaysian context (Ooi, et al., 2017), this research reported here reveals what made the counselor educators perceived their levels of competences as reported, as to what professional experiences and trainings they have and have not received. This later suggests a plan to provide training and refine their competencies in the future.

METHOD
This study is a descriptive survey describing the professional identity of a group of counselor educators in a university in Yogyakarta. The group was selected purposively for having been teaching in the same department as the UHVHDUFKHU ¶V Twenty five academic staff who were also counselor educators received the questionnaire but 17 (or 68%) out of 25 completed and returned it. The quantitative data were gained from a selfreported semi-open questionnaire. Checked with Cronbach alpha-technique, its reliability was 0.972, which is high. Thus, it was considered reliable to reveal to what extent the counselor educators in the university met 75 competency indicator statements, detailed from eight required competences (Dikti, 2007).
The 75 statements in the questionnaire was based on 7 standard competences outlined by the government (Ministrial Regulation of Education and Culture No. 27/2008).The respondents were first asked to write the indicators and descriptors of the 7 competences, based on their interpretation. The indicators and descriptors were then checked for repetition or ambiguety. It is the descriptors amounting 75 descriptor statements that were later used to explore the counVHORUV ¶ VHOI-perceived level of the 7 competences. In completing the questionnaire, the respondents were to do three steps. First, the respondents were asked to mention their professional experiences and background as a counselor educator. They were then asked to rate themselves against the 75 statements of counselor educator competences into low, middle and high level of mastery. In addition, they wrote a plan and supports they think they need to develop their competences (professional development agenda). From those three components, it is theself-report component that can only be processed and analyzed properly. In addition, a focus group was held, where some respondents were invited and engaged in a discussion. The focus group was to generate ideas on additional competencies the counselor educators thought to be necessary and important to teach in a counselor profession education program run by the Department.
The data were later analyzed through the combination of two approaches; quantitative-descriptive for the mapping of competences using questionnaires and qualitative-descriptive for data derived from the focus group discussion. The quantitative data were analyzed descriptively based on the score competence achievement compared with the group norm as a whole. Meanwhile the qualitative data were analyzed using flow and interactive methodsdeveloped by Miles, Huberman, & Saldana (2014). The focus group data were first transcribed and decoded based on their similarities in term of idea or topic raised. They were decoded to ease the researcher classify each different topic. The transcripts were then reduced based on similar occurences of data where the same topics were raised by some respodents. The reduced data were then analyzed by comparing them with the respondes given by the respondents.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS Findings
The following discusses the findings derived from the questionnaire and focus group in reference to the questions of the research. The first research question is to describe required competences the counselor educators considered important. The question aimed at exploring competencies the respondents think counselor educators ought to have. Though the Ministrial Regulation of Education and Culture No. 27/2008 has outlined seven competencies as described previously, it is deemed important to identify counselor HGXFDWRUV ¶ SHUFHSWLRQ RI WKHP DQG WR VHH LI they have different sets of competencies in mind. The understanding about what counselors must be able to do is believed to impact their identity related to their capacity and roles which reflect what is valued in becoming a professional counselor (Calley & Hawley, 2008).
This data in response to the first question were derived from the results of focus group discussion. The focus group was attended by 8 out 17 staff who responded to the questionnaire. Each attendee then was asked to which extent they are well aware of the required FRXQVHORU HGXFDWRU ¶V FRPSHWHQFLHV DQG whether they think that the listed competencies are sufficient and appropriate pertaining to the localities and characteristics of their home university.
First, all respondents shared the same view that counselor educators must have the competencies required by the government, categorized into three aspects of professional, pedagogical and interpersonal/social skills. The professional aspects deal with a) their uQGHUVWDQGLQJ RI OHDUQHUV ¶ FKDUDFWHULVWLFV and profiles, and b) their mastery of guidance and counseling theories. The pedagogical aspects concern competences required for teaching, guiding and supervising in any academic programs set by the university. These involve skills in teaching various theories and skills in guidance and counseling discipline, providing guidance and counselling services while performing teaching responsibilities, supervising counseling practicum, and conducting research and community.
The interpersonal/social aspects denote commitment in carrying out continuous professional development as well as establishing networking and partnership by interacting well with peers and external partners.
While the respondents agreed that the competencies are relevant and comprehensive, threeadditional competencies were considered important to shape their professional identity as counselor educators. They are cross-cultural skills, instructional technology competencies, and skills in providing localized guidance and counseling. The following illustrated some of the UHVSRQGHQWV ¶ RSLQLRQ UHJDUGLQJ WKH addition of required competencies.
³>:H@ QHHG WR NQRZ RXU VWXGHQWV RU client, mm, like who they are, where they are from. This has to do with their personality and knowing it helps in dealing wLWK WKHP EHWWHU ´ Subject 3 ³<HV LW DELOLW\ WR NQRZ RXU VWXGHQWV or client)should be made explicit with clear indicators. I think, ee, it should be part of the first FRPSHWHQFH ´ Subject 5 Both respondents expressed the importance to include cross-cultural skills into the required set of counselor HGXFDWRU ¶V FRPSHWHQFLHV E\ DGGLQJ specific indicators into the first competence depicted in the regulation i.e. understanding clients. They further explained that the knowledge of different cultural values rooted from different ethnicities in Indonesia can help them understand the characteristics of their clients.
In addition, technology literacy is seen as increasingly essential in instructional practices including counseling practices. Counselor educators thus need to equip their students ± future school counselors to have necessary ICT skills in order that they can provide better counseling services with the assistance of technology. In so doing, the counselor educators need first to have the related technological skills as described by some of the respondents below. The respondents above mentioned some of the roles of IT in performing their counseling responsibilities and thus think that IT skills should be added to the list of required competencies of counselor educators. It is interesting though that none mentioned the necessity to include it under a different competence, making it a subset of competence. Instead, further clarified, most respondents thought that IT should be an independent competence that needs to be acquired and developed among the counselor educators.
The last additional competence the respondents thought they need to possess is the ability to provide local-specific or culture-based counseling service. One of the respondents articulated that Yogyakarta, where the university is homebased, is a very culturally rich and geographically specific region. This affects the characteristics of its people and they way they live which may be reflected in the way they interact with each other. Thus, one respondents felt the need to specify the competence of providing localized guiding and counseling services as part of the required competences of counselor educators. This was however debated by most of the attendees which resulted in the consensus that the proposed skill is too specific and too local making it ungeneralizable. Since their students are likely coming from different ethnicities and regions across Indonesia, it is difficult to specify which unique way of counseling which represents the characteristics of the program. Besides, the students will later go home or possibly work in different town so that the ability to provide Yogyakarta-flavored counseling services will not be suitable when performed in different province.
The next research question is the level of competencies, self-rated by the subjects or the counselor educators themselves, participating in this study. In general, their self-rated levels are in high category, few of whom reported themselves having very high and surprisingly low levels of competencies. The following table describes statistical description of counselor educator competence. In general, the comparison between the expected and the empirical mean score shows a tendency that overall empirical competence average is higher than the hypothetical average. It can be concluded that the competence level of counselor educator is relatively high. Table 1 shows that the majority of counselor educators in counselor profession education program of Yogyakarta State University, Indonesia reached mean score between 53% and 70.6%while the rest sit in thelow and high categories. In the aspect of continuous professionalism development competence, the lowest number reaches 30%. This is in contrast to the expected mean score as counselor educators are expected to be in the high level because of the variety of organization profession experiences they have. The instrument shows that the indicator of profession-based organizational experiences might be narrowly interpreted to having been involved merely in professional association of guidance and counselling. Therefore, to give clear overview of counselor educators ¶ abilities, the data were grouped into three-level categories that rank the counselor educator competence from the lowest to the highest level. The rank system yields a more-solid conclusion because it not only includes hypothetical and ideal mean but also considers the standard deviation from each component score. The results of the calculation are detailed in Figure 1.

Figure 1. Graph of Counselor Educator Competence Level
The graph quickly shows that in majority, or 82.4% of the counselor educators self-reported to have average level of competencies, while 11.8% of them reported to belong to low category, and 5.9% felt to belong to high category. These results implied that the counselor educators have high self-efficacy in their skills and mastery of various aspects of guidance and counseling discipline as well as in providing effective instruction in the program. Such positive level of self-belief is also found in the study of Bjornestad, Veronica, Jo, & Kristine (2014) which VKRZV VLWH VXSHUYLVLQJ FRXQVHORUV ¶ VHOIefficacy in performing supervising roles and responsibilities at schools. Bjornestad, et al. (2014) argued that the positive level of confidence in their ability came from the fact that the supervising counselors have gone through a large number of hours of supervising making them to regard themselves as practicing counselors themselves, not simply a supervisor watching over their students doing or providing counseling. This might explain the case with the counselor educators participating in the study. Their experiences and years of service may have a say in growing their confidence of selfability in tackling counseling roles as well as instructional responsibilities in the program.

Discussion
Professional teachers are teachers who are able to perform their educational academic competence in implementing theeducational profession tasks (Law No. 20/2003 on National Education System; Ministrial Regulation of Education and Culture No. 27/2008, ibid). To become ones, all teachers, including guidance and counseling teachers, later known as school counselors are required to attend profession training or education after the completion of their undergraduate degree. In the meantime, the teachers teaching in a profession education program run by appointed universities later called as counselor educators have to undergo some changes in their professional identity. Their identity has developed along with added responsibilities and tasks they have to cope, from generating non-certified While producing graduates in Guidance and Counseling is part of their job as university lecturers, generating professional counselors has influenced their self-SRUWUDLW DV µSURIHVVLRQDO FRXQVHORUV ¶ ,W LV WKH QRWLRQ WKDW WKHLU students should become a professional school counselor who counsel the students, conduct research, and develop continuous professionalism that they embrace as too their professional identity. As Calley & Hawley (2008, p: 6 DUJXH µLPSOLHG LQ WKH professional identity related to counselor educators are the primary activities that contribute WR RQH ¶V UROH DV DQ DFDGHPLFLDQ teaching, VFKRODUVKLS DQG VHUYLFH ¶.
This self-perceived identity might explain why two indicators, becoming a supervisor in the training program and in carrying out research in the field, are the two-most highly rated, with 76.5 % of the respondents self-rated themselves for KDYLQJ µDYHUDJH ¶ OHYHO RI FRPSHWHQFLHV Only around 10% of them thought they are highly skilled and lacking in supervisory roles. This is in contrast to research performance where none of them said having high ability in conducting research, with the number of subjects lacking in research skills is twice as much as that in supervisory abilities.
Being a teacher who does not only teach, supervise but also provide counseling to their trainees during the training, the counselor educators may have embraced professional identity in term of teaching and service. Meanwhile, being an active researcher is part of them becoming professional in term of scholarship capacity as academicians. This way, the professional identity of those counselor educators should have highly reflected that described by Calley & Hawley (2008). The graph however shows that the majority of the subjects were not so confident with their capacities in doing supervision and research or having only average level of competencies. One thing that may explain this finding is the influence of local culture DQG IDPLOLDULW\ ZLWK VFKRRO ¶V FRQWH[WV DV seen in the excerpt of focus group discussion below. As seen above, Subject 1 talks about his need to learn from his peers as well as to have workshop on supervision and school curriculum. While this may show lack of self-confidence, this reflects more about the culture for not boasting about your strengths. Needs for learning from colleagues shows that Subject 1 felt that there are other people who have been more experienced that him, despite the fact that he has 23 years of teaching. On the other hand, with less than 10 years of teaching, Subject 2 might have little experience of VFKRRO ¶V OLIH DQG FXUULFXOXP 7KLV PD\ make him less confident about supervising school counselors.
The culture of being modest seems to have been shared among the respondents and may have triggered the suggestion to add the competence of providing culture-based or localized counseling as mentioned earlier. The necessity to address different cultures and values they hold is reflected in the multicultural approach of guidance and counseling (Bunu, 2016). Bunu attempted to design, implement and evaluate guidance and counseling services at senior high school using multicultural approach. He in particular aimed at addressing VWXGHQWV ¶ PXOWLFXOWXUDO differences by providing couseling services that were PDGH WR PDWFK ZLWK VWXGHQWV ¶ YDOXHV ethnic-based behavioral characteristics and interactional patterns. Bunu (2016) further found that his endeavour came to see many challenges due to two main reasons. First, school counselors are generally not trained in applying multicultural approach and secondly schools at large are not prepared to implement multicultural apporach as their counseling programs do not orient to multicultural paradigm. The second reason may have been caused by the first as it is the school counselor who decides the design and running of counseling programs in their context. It implies that for multicultural approach to be implemented at school, school counselors need to be first introduced to and trained about it during their pre-service or profession training. With this in mind, the UHVSRQGHQWV ¶ YLHZ DERXW WKH LPSRUWDQFH RI having the competence to understand their FOLHQW ¶V FXOWXUDO RULHQWDWLRQ LV LQ OLQH ZLWK multicultural approach to counseling. Such reflection to some extent reflects the UHVSRQGHQWV ¶ YDOXH DERXW FRXQVHOLQJ LQ that counselors should understand their FOLHQWV ILUVW DQG µVHUYH ¶ WKHP ZLWK counseling programs that meet their FOLHQWV ¶ QRUPV WKDW DUH GHOLYHUHG LQ ZD\V that conform with their commonly accepted behaviour. Such value of putting clients first over themselves may be considered as a professional value the group of counselor educators under researched possesses. Not only being modest or humble, the respondents can be described of having the attitude of putting clients over themselves, which shows a quality professional counselor.
In term of research, in majority, the subjects of this research identified themselves as having moderate level of competencies with almost 25% felt lacking the skill. Interestingly, despite years of teaching, the two subjects below both shared the same concern of low opportunities for getting research grants from the government of the university.
³>«@ UDWKHU GLIILFXOW EHFDXVH WKHUH are not many grants offered. If there is, the competition is pretty high as track record is also taken into DFFRXQW 6R WKRVH ZKR ¶YH GRQH research or got grants are likely to get them again while newbies have WR EH µD UHVHDUFK WHDP PHPEHU ¶ ILUVW RU µDVVLVWDQW ¶ WR WKHLU VHQLRUV LQ UHVHDUFK SURMHFW ´ Subject 3 ³5HVHDUFK IXQG LV OLPLWHG ERWK IURP the government and the university and requires a lot of paper work. This is discouraging actually and thus needs to change so we become more motivated to conduct research in VSLWH RI RXU EXV\ VFKHGXOHV ´ Subject 4 The two subjects, each of whom with 23 and 17 years of teaching, show that research seems a luxury for limited research grants and complicated and discouraging administrative procedure. This may result in them feeling having a somewhat moderate and low competencies in research because they were simply not experienced in the area. Research experience might not be a common aspect of professional identity examination (Calley & Hawley, 2008) given that the difficulty in data collection. In this study, research is integral to the counselor HGXFDWRUV ¶ PDLQ DFDGHPLF UHVSRQVLELOLWLHV and thus to their professional identity. As the curriculum in the profession training requires trainees to do research project as part of their program completion, every counselor educator will be responsible in supervising their project.
Next, commitment in sustaining professional development as well as maintaining their quality and performance in teaching in the program is perceived moderate or average by 70.6 % respondents.
The subjects under investigation are all busy teachers with heavy load of teaching responsibilities. Some also had structural roles like being a vice dean or department head. Given this, commitment to ensuring high quality teaching in the program may become their last priority. In addition, none stated having high initiatives for professional growth and almost 30% of them reported lacking in professional development measures. The indicators of professional development are often reflected through involvement in seminars or trainings. This has also been reported through discussion with the subjects in the focus group, as shown below.
³, XVXDOO\ DWWHQG VHPLQDUV RU trainings offered by the university but not very often because the seminar grant is also limited and FRPSHWLWLYH :H ¶YH EHHQ YHU\ EXV\ WHDFKLQJ WRR VR VRPHWLPHV LW ¶V DWWHQGLQJ VHPLQDUV KDUG WR GR ´ Subject 5 The aspect of competence, doing sustainable professional development efforts, is similar to the aspect of µHQJDJHPHQW EHKDYLRUV ¶ GHVFULEHG E\ Healey & Hays (2011in Woo, et al. 2014 as endeavors taken to be considered a member of counseling profession. This inlcudes attending seminars, joining professional association and publishing in counseling-related publications and the like. Involvement in profession-related activities is often associated with possitive development of professional identity. Similalry, Woo, Cassandra, & Eric (2016) described opportunity and motivation to KDYH µSURIHVVLRQDO HQJDJHPHQW DQG FRQWULEXWLRQ ¶ KHOSV FRXQVHORU HGXFDWRU ¶V professional identity to grow and influence HDFK RWKHU ¶V GHYHORSPHQW RI LGHQWLW\ Woo, et. al. (2016) further stated that having professional association membership is a vital way of developing professional identity.
Another competency, substantive knowledge of related theories in Guidance and Counseling and of learner individual differences, is equally rated, with 70.6% VWDWHG WKH\ KDG µDYHUDJH ¶ OHYHO RI theoretical understanding and almost 25% perceived themselves low in substantive knowledge related to guidance and counseling. Only around 7% stated that they had high level of theoretical background. While this is surprising, this may be caused by the fact that 7 out of 17 counselor educators who will teach in the profession education program and completed the questionnaire majored in Psychology, not Guidance and Counseling. This might be the reason why they felt they were lacking theoretical foundation UHODWHG WR VFKRRO FRXQVHOLQJ DQG OHDUQHU ¶V individual differences.
The in-congruence between training background and teaching responsibilities seems to have affected the research VXEMHFWV ¶ SHUFHSWLRQ RQ WKHLU H[SHULHQce and involvement in professional networking. Only 52.9 % of respondents stated to be highly involved in profession organization in Guidance and Counseling namely ABKIN (Indonesia association of guidance and counseling) and HSBKI (Indonesia union of scholars of guidance and counseling). Meanwhile, 30% reported low participation in events held by the two organizations and only an estimate of 10% are an active member of the two professional association. With psychology as background, the respondents thought they do not belong to those organizations. Indeed, the attempt of separating counseling from other mental health profession like psychologist seems to have caused such feeling among the respondents, as also found in Calley & Hawley (2008), Higgins et al. (2013) andWoo, et al. (2016).
The mismatch between educational background and teaching responsibilities seems to have impacted their selfperception on teaching competencies. While counseling and teaching should be inseparable roles of counselor educators, few (11%) of the respondents in this study reported having very high teaching competences despite their working history. Most of them (64.7 %) felt they only had moderate level of teaching competences. Most surprisingly is that 24.3 % of the subjects confessed lacking or having lowlevel pedagogical skills as seen in the following excerpts. System, professional training is higher education program acquired after accomplishing the undergraduate program that prepares the students obtain a job with specific skill requirements.
Teacher Profession Education program is educational program organized for Bachelor holders (S-1) in both educational and and non-educational background, who have skills and interest in becoming a teacherso that they become professional teachers who meet the requirements of national education standards and acquire a teaching certificate. Accordingly, the output of the counseling profession education can adapt and perform profession educator tasks that are excellent, dignified, and proudly accepted by the educational institutions, communities, andIndonesian people (Dikti, 2011).
The guidance and counselling teachers or counselors in the national education system is recognized to have similar qualifications that equal to the teacher, lecturers, learning tutors,trainers, facilitators and instructors qualifications (the Law No. 20/2003 of article 1 number 6). However, the explicit and equal recognitionbetween the educator qualificationsand the others might not exclude the fact that each educator including counselorshas to perform tasks or jobs, and services specific and unique to others. Therefore,the context and expected services of guidance and counselling teachers or counselors in this study are understood as to clarify the concept and practice of guidance and counselling services in appropriate manner. According to the Government Regulation No. 74 year 2008 on teachers, educators of guidance and counselling services in the future are called as guidance and counselling teachers or counselors (Dikti, 2010).
Because of the specific contexts and expected tasks, the goal of counselor profession education is to teachers or counselors who are able to perform independent guidance and counselling program using the four components. These components are basic services, responsive services, individual planning and supporting systems.
However, the commitment from guidance and counselling teachers should consider the five stages which are constructing awareness, personalization, management, impact and collaboration (Poynton, Schumacher, & Wilczenski;2008).
The existence of guidance and counselling teachers or counselors in the national education system is categorized as one of theeducator qualifications that equals to the teachers, lecturers, learning tutors,trainers, facilitators and instructors qualifications (the Law No. 20/2003 of article 1 number 6). However, the explicit and equal recognitionbetween the educator qualificationsand the others might not exclude the fact that each educator including counselorshas the context tasks, the expected performance, and the specific services to others which contain the uniqueness and differences. Therefore,the context and expected services of guidance and counselling teachers or counselor in this study emphasizes to clarify the concept and practice of guidance and counselling in appropriate manner. According to the Government Regulation No. 74 year 2008 on teachers, educators of guidance and counselling services in the future are called as guidance and counselling teachers or counselors (Dikti, 2010). However, it is conceptually that counselor education model should be in line with the philosophy of humanism, education, scientific, purpose and framework of guidance and counselling services (Kartadinata, 2011).
With regard to those concepts, the counselor profession education providers should prepare good-quality of human resources in supporting the success of theprogram. The essential services of the in-service counselor profession education implementation occur in a good-quality of study program. This implies that there are several activities that need to be designed and performed by the program provider. First, there needs to be coordinations on thecurriculum implementation in the form of descriptions, syllabi, lesson plan, andevaluation instruments that arecomprehensive and synergy. Secondly, the provider of the program shouldevaluate and develop integrated curriculum for the education program of EDFKHORU PDVWHU ¶s and doctorate programs as well as profession education program. Next, the provider needs to carry out studies, research and development related to the quality and innovation improvement ofteacher professionalism training program in each study program. Finally, the program director needs to designtrainin that aims at fine-tuning and developing human resources or the staff, which help standardize and enhance implementation of counselor profession education program.

CONCLUSION
The profile of thecounselor educators participating in the study is described as having three aspects of competences. These include professional, pedagogical and interpersonal/social aspects of competence. The three aspects break down into8 sub-competencies that involves understanding to the participants of the services, mastering the guidance and counseling theories, conducting educated guidance and counseling learning program, maintaining the quality of guidance and counselingperformance, supervising the implementation of professionalism training program, conducting research and community services as the form of problem-solving ability, developing continuous professionalism, and being able to build cooperation and partnership networks.
The counselor educatorsadmitted themselves for generally having average level of the competencies.In addition, the respondents expressed the importance to have IT and cross-cultural competences as counselor educators.
The fine-tuning program becomes a strategic option in improving some competence aspects that are considered low and developing other adequate competence aspects. The analysis results of competence mapping might be used as a starting point to determine the compatibility between the subject course and the dominant competence owned by counselor educators. However, the analysis results show that the level ofeducator counselor competence is generally equivalent with the others. In several competence aspects, some educator counselors show the ability in the low level. To overcome the condition, the implementation of fine-tuning program should properly organize in order to improve particular competences.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
The writer would like to thank the Rector and Vice Rector of Academic Affairs of Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, as well as Prof. Dr. Burhan Nurgiyantoro for their facilitation and assistance during the writing of the article.