India is the second most populated country with a huge youth population.
As per India’s Census 2011, Youth (15-24 years) in India constitutes one-fifth (19.1%) of India’s total population. The share reached its maximum of 35.11% in the year 2010.
As per 2020 statistics the student population is 40 crores in India. 10–20% of children and adolescents have a mental health problem of some type.
The Indian education system is regularly beneath the hammer for being competitive and focusing on quantitative learning, long school hours, heavy school bags and an improper curriculum. With this system, students tend to become less creative, innovative and leave no room for self-learning, which is the need of the hour.
Manifestations such as attention deficits, cognitive disturbances, lack of motivation, and negative mood all adversely affect scholastic development. It is often unclear what factors associated with school affect children’s mental development and what preventive measures and interventions at school might be effective.
For this we need a psychologists who can help the students out with their problems. Who will lend their ears to listen . As in some case we as a teenager only need someone who could lend us an ear .
But this comes along with many taboos which prevails in Indian society
Counselling or Psychotherapy is not considered as an option in Indian society. Often it is tagged as a service for mad people.
Here if someone says he/ she should visit the psychologist people call its unimportant. They say these are just mood swings or just ignore their feelings and thoughts which can be actually dangerous in many cases. Here mental health isn’t given much importance.
But today’s youth are well informed about the importance and the need of a psychologist in their life. Counselling sessions are very useful. Students are equipped with resources, but they lack the ability to foresight their future and thus, live in a dilemma of what’s next for them. What is happening in their life? Where to go? What to do? Whom to rely on? All these perplexities can be effectively answered through efficient professional guidance through counselling.
But now if we see even if our youth is well informed, India lacks some facilities here in educational institution.
It is very important to have a counselling cell in every educational institution. Welll according to what I think we can also stop many suicides of our young generation.
Today we have lots of problems which we can’t just share with our parents and to be frank today’s generation not all are close to their family . I myself have been through many emotional crisis. I am still 19 but yes I have had suicidal thoughts also. Have attempted once. Now if I think of those day I feel if I had someone to talk to I could never had these kinda thoughts and also my best friend wouldn’t have committed suicide I guess.
Government has no specific law or anything for providing mental health services in educational institutions. But some boards or private schools have them because of the current situation.
The CBSE (Central Board of Secondary Education) has made it mandatary to have a counselling service in every school. Despite this, even in supposedly the most developed region of the country, NCR, a meagre 3 per cent of schools have counsellors. The schools charge hefty fees and yet don’t abide by the law. The plight of schools in other regions of the country is bound to be worse.
There are less than 5,000 psychiatrists and less than 2,000 clinical psychologists in the country. This shortage in mental health professionals needs to be addressed soon as India has a very young population.
Some important steps can be and should be taken for the improvement of mental health among students and also awareness related to this.
The concept of a mental health curriculum is similar – to start talking about mental health and well-being in a structured and deliberate manner, from the very start.
Mental health curriculum is a helpful step towards our Goal. This article has a lot to say.
https://www.indiatoday.in/education-today/featurephilia/story/here-s-why-schools-should-include-mental-health-education-in-curriculum-1454266-2019-02-12
According to me all educational institution should be having a counselling cell and the counsellor/ psychologist should be familiar with the children. Like atleast the kids of the school should know that they have a counselling cell in their institution and someone who is ready to listen and help them out with their problems which sometimes our parents fail to understand. And one of the most important thing is also that the counsellor has to make the students believe in them that their problems will be kept confidential and that they can trust them. For this a counselling cell is necessary i n every educational institution.
These are some steps that can make the counselling sector of India help students efficiently. This can also be a reason which can reduce the suicide rate among students in India.
Mental health is a major issue in our country . Official data says A report by the World Health Organisation (WHO) revealed that 7.5 per cent of the Indian population suffers from some form of mental disorder. Mental illnesses constitute one-sixth of all health-related disorders and India accounted for nearly 15% of the global mental, neurological and substance abuse disorder burden. The treatment gap, which is defined as the prevalence of mental illnesses and the proportion of patients that get treatment, is over 70 per cent. WHO also predicts that by 2020(this year ofcourse), roughly 20 per cent of India will suffer from mental illnesses.
This is a sector which should be given a little more importance in our country.