Madurai bench of Madras HC forms special panel to analyse state edu scenario

Chennai: The Madurai bench of Madras HC has constituted a six-member Committee headed by Director of Technical Education to explore and analyse the current education scenario in the state in terms of the examination system, parent-teacher interaction, support available to students (academic, psychological and mechanisms), strength of co-curricular activities, challenges faced by the children and the concerns of teachers, parents and educational administrators.

Constituting the Committee, which included a Psychiatrist, a division bench comprising Justices S. Vimala and T. Krishnavalli said, “the committee is required to explore the best practices in the state that promotes emotional well being of students and the best practices in parent and teacher collaborations”.

The bench requested the Committee to suggest the remedial actions to reduce the incidences of violence (self-directed, relationship and mental morbidity), strategies to improve the emotional well-being and academic performance of the students, strategies to foster resilience among students, mechanisms that will provide academic and psychological support to the students and monitoring mechanism to ensure sustained support to the students and to fix the responsibilities of stakeholders in bringing changes in this regard, the bench added and posted to March 23 for filing report.

The bench constituted the Committee after it came across during the hearing of a Habeas corpus petition that a 19-year-old girl student ran away from home apprehending scolding at the hands of her father because of her poor performance in the examination. Recording the assurance given by her father that he will adjust with her educational performance, the bench closed the HCP.

The bench said the mental health and wellbeing of the student population did not get the deserved attention.

The students experience significant stress in some form or the other in their lives. Some stresses were part of the normal growing up, while others were more environmental. They remain silent sufferers for a long time with a majority of the families being unaware or ignorant of the ongoing inner emotional turmoil of their children. “Left unattended, these mental health problems, during childhood and adolescence period would result in serious psychiatric illness/disorder, when they become adult”, the bench added.

The bench said, “we are of the view that the school mental health programme if implemented, would be effective in improving learning and psychological well being and treating mental health problems. To address those issues, we constitute a committee”.