Chennai: Tamil Nadu govt is planning to impart mental health training to college faculty members to identify stress and anxiety among students. On a pilot basis, more than 30 faculty members from city colleges will be given training by mental health experts next month.According to the plan, student mentors in every college will be given training to identify symptoms of stress among students.
“Students are coming from different backgrounds. They are under stress for a lot of reasons, including academic pressure. If the stress symptoms are identified early, then they can give counselling to those students,” said M P Vijayakumar, vice-chairman of Tamil Nadu state council for higher education.“It aims at capacity building of student mentors in govt, govt-aided and private colleges. Currently, we are working on preparing training module for teachers. The training will also involve lessons on how to give counselling to students after identifying stress symptoms among them,” he added.A recent online survey by QS I-GAUGE among college students in TN found that 54% of participants were stressed or anxious about their studies on campus. While 15% of students said they feel stressed very often, 39% of the respondents said they feel stressed sometimes.Academic stress, family issues, relationships with peers, lack of relaxation, or free time were cited as reasons for stress among students.
