June 29, 2019, Hindustan Times: 1.2 million schools’ teachers to be trained about mental health issues https://www.hindustantimes.com/india-news/1-2-million-schools-teachers-to-be-trained-about-mental-health-issues/story-n12sItVWWX6GsLruaElIcI.html The ministry of human resource development (MHRD) plans to train principals and teachers of nearly 1.2 million government schools across the country to identify and address mental health issues in children, a senior official said. The move is aimed at preventing violence involving students on school campuses. Explaining the rationale, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, cited the murder of a seven-year-old boy, Pradyuman Thakur, by a Class XI student in the toilet of a Gurugram school on September 8. 2017. The Central Bureau of Investigation, which took over the case on the recommendation of the Haryana government, claimed the suspect had chosen the child randomly. He allegedly slit the boy’s throat to get the school to declare a holiday and defer a scheduled parent-teacher meeting and an examination, the agency said. “There is need to have safety mechanisms, CCTVs etc in place. But handling the psychological aspects is also the key. There are instances of students committing suicides due to exam-related fear etc,” the official cited above said. As many as 4.2 million teachers and principals could be trained as first-level counsellors as part of the initiative, the official said. Hiring professional counsellors is not an option because not every school may not have the resources to do so; he added that recruiting such a large number of professionals would be a challenging task -- “one of them being the availability of so many trained counsellors in all parts of the country.”…
Childhood Lost
Children today are noticeably different from previous generations, and the proof is in the news coverage we see every day. This site shows you what’s happening in schools around the world. Children are increasingly disabled and chronically ill, and the education system has to accommodate them. Things we've long associated with autism, like sensory issues, repetitive behaviors, anxiety and lack of social skills, are now problems affecting mainstream students. Blame is predictably placed on bad parenting (otherwise known as trauma from home).
Addressing mental health needs is as important as academics for modern educators. This is an unrecognized disaster. The stories here are about children who can’t learn or behave like children have always been expected to. What childhood has become is a chilling portent for the future of mankind.
Loss of Brain Trust features over 9,000 news stories published worldwide since January, 2017
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