HYDERABAD: As the student suicides continue to rock the university campuses across the country, the University Grants Commission (UGC) has alerted the higher educational institutes on measures to be taken to address the concerns of students with suicidal tendencies. In the wake of recent suicides of Rohith Vemula at the University of Hyderabad (UoH) and three medical students at SVS Yoga Medical College in Tamil Nadu, the UGC has expressed concern over the safety of students in educational institutes.
In a letter addressed to the vice chancellors of the universities on January 27, UGC secretary Prof Jaspal Singh Sandhu asked the institutes across the country to set up a broad based ‘students counselling system’, for effective redressal of problems and challenges being faced by the students. According to the UGC, the counselling system should be a unique, interactive and target-oriented system, involving students, teachers and parents to address common students’ concerns ranging from anxiety, stress, fear of change and failure to homesickness and a slew of other academic worries.
The UGC’s safety guidelines issued in the last academic year, made it mandatory for the universities to create the students counselling centre on their campuses and the colleges affiliated to the respective university. The UGC also asked the institutes to have a trained psychologist available at the centre. However, the safety guidelines have remained only on papers. Majority of the state universities including Osmania, Kakatiya and Jawaharlal Nehru Technological University (JNTU), Hyderabad, still lack a dedicated system to cater to the emotional and intellectual needs of students and guide them.
Now the UGC has asked the universities to immediately set up counselling centres and report the status to it. “The action taken in this regard may be sent to the undersigned at the earliest on counsellingcentre.ugc@gmail.com,” the UGC’s letter to VCs read.
Safety Guidelines