HYDERABAD: Many psychologists from the city have opined that the state government needs to address the needs of the students by appointing a regular psychologist in each institution as help through tele-media was insufficient. Many of them decried the attitude to nominate college lecturers as student counsellors.
Clinical psychologist Dr Rajini Tenali said the students are different and learn at their own pace. However, teaching and dealing with every student similarly is adding more pressure on them. When a child, finds it difficult to understand concepts and raises doubt, the lecturers should show patience instead of taunting the student, she said.
She added that even parents fall short when it comes to shouldering this responsibility.
“They only brag about the costs involved in education. The children are not adept mentally and physically to understand them. It is the duty of parents to help their children but they remain oblivious,” she said.
Sharing her experiences in some city schools, clinical psychologist Sunita Sharma said that principals do not want to hire psychologists and insist that teachers be trained for a few days so that they can double up as counsellors. This practice must stop forthwith.
“The principals need to provide us a separate room to counsel students, which they refer to as ‘cartoon room’. This is the state of mental health. How can a science or mathematics teacher be a counsellor? Even teachers cannot say no as they are bombarded with a lot of clerical work and continue doing what is asked only to retain their job. Teachers do not know what students are going through and they cannot understand their behaviour as we professionals can,” she said.
Meanwhile, some junior college students said that they are happy that at least tele-media lines will be opened soon. Moreover, they are all for the presence of a psychologist in the college because being professionally qualified they can understand a teacher’s rude behaviour immediately and help them improve academically.
