The Career Guidance and Adolescent Counselling Cell of the Higher Secondary Education wing of the General Education Department will on Friday launch ‘We Help,’ a toll-free telephone service, to alleviate various pressures experienced by students in connection with the Plus Two examinations, and provide them, and their parents, necessary support.
This year has been unlike any other for students. Stuck at home for months, students find it difficult to motivate themselves in the absence of peer interaction, and student-teacher interaction too suffered.
Students may be unhappy with their preparations, or worried how to remember all that they studied, or be bogged down by pressure from family or friends to perform well. Parents too may be anxious about their wards’ performance in the examinations.
Toll-free number
Whatever be the problem, students and parents can call the toll-free number 18004255459 from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. to seek counselling. The number will be operational on all working days till the examinations conclude, a statement said.
Ten counsellors associated with Souhruda Clubs functioning in schools under the cell will provide the counselling in two shifts. They have been provided training by the Bengaluru-based National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences and the Child Development Centre at the Government Medical College Hospital here.
Souhruda Club coordinators in all 1,680 higher secondary schools have also been trained to provide support to students to beat the exam blues.
On YouTube
On Saturday, the counselling cell will organise a programme on mental health and how to face examinations with confidence for students. A panel of four psychiatrists will respond to students’ queries collected through school Souhruda Club coordinators, C.M. Azeem, State coordinator of the counselling cell, said.
The programme can be viewed by Plus One and Plus Two students and their parents on the Career Guidance and Adolescent Counselling Cell’s YouTube channel.
The cell in association with the Malappuram district administration has made arrangements for a telecounselling service at the Collectorate there, while in Kollam district, students have been provided contact numbers of teachers to seek their help.
