Chennai: The Friday’s incident wherein four class 11 students of Panapakkam Government Girls Higher Secondary School committed suicide has reinforced the necessity to have proper counselling system for school students and teachers.
At present, the government is operating 10 mobile counselling centres across the state to help the students who are in need. Urging the state government to establish mobile counselling centers in every district, Sami. Sathyamoorthy, state president, Tamil Nadu High, and Higher Secondary Schools Headmasters Association said, “The teachers need to be given special counselling on how to handle the students who are emotionally sensitive.”
“The school education department should not pressurise the headmasters and teachers for 100% results. Teachers who are subjected to undue pressure are turning it towards students who are not performing well academically. The aim should be on developing the students to think on their own not to produce 100% results”, he said.
The district administration on Saturday placed the headmistress of the school and a teacher under suspension for allegedly scolding the class 11 students. “Many enthusiastic teachers are feeling let down by these incidents”, he said.
Senior educationist S.S. Rajagopalan said, “From elementary schools to engineering colleges the practice of summoning the parents is being followed if they found any indiscipline on the part of the students. It is a wrong practice and a fruitless exercise.”
“The educational institutions should sort out the issues. Parents who have to let go one day’s salary obviously be angry with their wards. The teachers are studying psychology in their B.Ed. course. They should practice what they had studied,” he stressed.
Citing the poor parent-teacher relations as the root cause of the problem he said, the teachers should be given proper counselling on handling the students.
“Blaming the teachers alone is not correct and it will not lead to a solution,” says clinical neuropsychologist Dr Viruthagirinathan. “The parenting has become very poor and they are not following what their wards are studying”, he said.
“Teachers and students should be given psychological counselling. Teachers should know how to handle the adolescent children and students should know how to cope with the stress. Instead of public shaming, if teachers counsel students in private it will have a positive impact”, he added.
P.B. Prince Gajendrababu suggested a holistic approach to the issue. “These incidents are happening on a regular basis in all types of schools. Taking this incident as an eye opener, the school education department should devise a holistic plan to sort out this problem”.
He said the pressure of producing 100% results is putting the teachers under stress. “The learning process will have difficulty at many levels. We have to sensitise our teachers and management about the background and sensitivity of the students”, he said.
