Alaul Alam :
Student counselling is a type of activity that works to facilitate students to develop them socially and mentally. It is a tradition that has been significantly developed in most European countries. Counseling to students has been a daily phenomenon apart from running all academic activities in the education of these countries. Even in many cases, imparting education is not much more concentrated than that of counselling to students. It is claimed that counselling students is an important part of education.
Certainly, teachers contribute to serving academic purposes of the students. But as a teacher we should not confine ourselves only to teaching. How can the teaching of a teacher be effective if the learners stay stressed in the class. It is certain that mental-wellbeing togetherstress-free teaching-learning is one of the pre-requisites for ensuring quality education. Truly, corresponding to academic activities has a connection to health and other circumstances of the learners.
The teens are the vulnerable community among many others getting misled. It is obvious that they undergo many difficulties. Apart from attitudes and behavioral changes they face difficulties in adjusting with parents, teachers and peers as well as adjusting themselves in the rapid transition of life. Studies show that the teens mainly suffer from emotional, conduct and undifferentiated disorders. In some cases, due to getting obsessed with such types of problems they are found to perform many unethical activities.
Again we see that social media addiction has been so acute amid the teens and the youths. Gradually, they are being isolated from the real touch of world and exposing themselves more and more to the virtual world. They are found behaving in artificial taste leading to the verge of their extinction of moral values which accelerate in choosing self-destruction, feeling hollowness in their minds as they hardly downturn themselves from online stand.
Undoubtedly, the unprecedented Covid-19 crisis has worsened the mental state of students. They are undergoing huge psychological pressures due to school closures. How will be the post-Covid education and curriculum is still a concern of the student community? Frustrations reign in their minds. Children are being exposed with many complex symptoms related to mental affairs.
However, it is a good initiative that the government is planning to recruit the psychologists to ensure mental health services for the students. Each school will be considered to provide this service. Again the responsible phycologists will train at least two teachers in each school on mental health issues in a bid to solve students’ various psychological problems through counseling. It is no denial that every teacher is a phycologist but until they are trained to guide the students, they can hardly contribute to this regard.
Apart from training teachers on student counselling, compulsory counselling class should be ensured and for this there should be a strict guideline from the government on the priority basis. Counselling subject can be incorporated as a part of the teaching-learning system. Lastly, the awareness amid teachers, parents, educators, administrators and community is a must to prioritize student counselling with a view to reducing academic, health and career related worries amid the learners.
(Alaul Alam teaches at Prime University. Email: [email protected])
