Efforts made to prevent suicidal tendencies among college students in the district and solving their other psychological problems received a boost on Saturday with Collector L. Subramanian naming as ‘Virutcham’ a training conducted for a batch of 62 college teachers who would become psychological counsellors.
Addressing the valedictory of the week-long training conducted at the American College since Monday, he said that the programme would be conducted for two more batches and followed up with another intensive training for all three batches.
A dedicated website would also be launched soon for the counsellors to share their experiences.
“The role and involvement of college teachers in improving the life skills of students is the need of the hour as the college students are now facing problems such as poor academic performance, parental and peer pressures, loss of self esteem, feeling of ineffectiveness, anxiety, depression and suicidal tendencies,” he said and urged the counsellors to be proactive.
In his address, C. Ramasubramanian, State Nodal Officer for District Mental Health Programme, said that the initiative taken by the district administration to train college teachers in counselling skills was the first of its kind in the State.
“Suicide is the third leading cause of death among college students. Young people diagnosed with depression are five times more likely to attempt suicide than adults and four out of every five college students who either contemplate or attempt suicide show clear warning signs. Violent behaviours and antisocial activities among the students are also more,” he said.
American College Principal M. Davamani Christober said that his college was proud to have supported the district administration in conducting the programme by providing the venue and other facilities free of cost.
Later, the Collector released a training manual on psycho educational skills for college teachers and handed over certificates to all the participants.
