Psychologists on mission to help college students

Psychologists on mission to help college students
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Highlights

With the aim of reducing stress among students in corporate colleges, psychologists are planning to voluntarily visit the campuses for providing counselling on managing stress and to explain how to face new challenges in life.

Nellore: With the aim of reducing stress among students in corporate colleges, psychologists are planning to voluntarily visit the campuses for providing counselling on managing stress and to explain how to face new challenges in life.

While the State government had announced that it would fix responsibility on educational institutions in cases of student suicides, AP Psychologists Federation (APPF) started organising free counselling sessions to the students of corporate colleges/schools and professional colleges for preventing possible suicides.

Psychologists say suicide is estimated to be the second leading cause of death among college students. As part of social responsibility to show empathy towards frustrating students due to study related stress and pressure, the Psychologists Federation is planning to address the issue with counselling on behaviour change and life skills to cope up with new environs.

“Death of a student leaves an unfathomable and ugly memory om the minds of other family members. This is really a pathetic situation where one has to understand the problem behind the tragedies. The situation is due to unbearable pressure in some educational institutions leading to suicides,” said Dr V Suresh Babu, State president of AP Psychologists Federation.

The federation had already started activities in Guntur, Vijayawada and now is focusing on Nellore, Kadapa and other districts. They say even though thousands of suicides occurred in various educational institutions for last 3-4 years, very few came to light through media.

Data says the US had 37,790 suicides in 2010, or a rate of 12.2 per 1,00,000, while India’s rate under projected suicide tally of 16 per 1,00,000. Among men, 40 per cent of suicides were among people in the age group of 15-29, for women, it was nearly 60 per cent in India.

Data released by the NCRB (National Crime Records Bureau) reveals that 69.7 per cent of those who committed suicide had an annual income of less than Rs 1 lakh while one out of every six persons who took the extreme step last year was a housewife.

In fact, majority suicides happen in two or three popular educational institutions across the State as they screw happiness of students for achieving ranks that would finally be helpful for minting money. This had turned out to be an acid test for the parents too whether to join their kids in such institutions or not. But, they have to accept any of the institutions as they have lesser options.

Experts say every college should have support services of a psychologist and Chakrapani Committee also recommended similar counselling facilities in educational institutions. But, the lackadaisical attitude of the governments aggravated the situation, they point out.

By P V Prasad

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