Easily accessible counseling for students-Mega Project
Problem statement:
Due to lack of proper guidance, counseling, and proper measures for problem sharing; high school, college, and university students face anxiety and stress; and not being able to manage them leads to depression; which badly affects their behaviors and performance in studies.
Almost 70% of the students are struggling with anxiety, stress, and depression in Pakistan. The main causes include lack of proper guidance, peer pressure to achieve high marks and pressure from society. Along with the academic burden, they face a highly competitive environment that requires social and personal sacrifice.
Lack of career counseling, the pressure of getting admission to universities, maltreatment, domestic issues, and the pressure of family to pursue a career against their dreams and interests, also contribute to stress and depression in students.
The problem is that we don’t have proper institutions to address these problems. The very few institutes that are working in this regard, are either not easily accessible to students or students are not aware of them. I myself, emailed an institute to seek guidance and it’s been about 10 days and I didn’t get any response.
I’ve conducted a small survey to know about student’s views in this regard. I got responses from high school, intermediate, and university students from different cities including Bahawalpur, Lahore, Vihari, Chishtian, Qusur, Rahim Yaar Khan, and some other areas.
According to the survey, 95% of students think that mental health is very important and it affects behaviors and academic performance. 84% of students were stressed and tense out of which 74% do not know how to manage stress. 63% of students said that their institute doesn’t provide any counseling services. And this was the result of a question regarding the attitude of teachers towards student’s problems if they ever get to share their problems with them.
68% of students feel a lack of guidance and 78.5% of students said that there should be proper guidance available to students regarding careers and life decisions. 75.4% said that their institutes must provide counseling services because it’s very important. And this was the attitude of students towards going to a counseling institute.
45% of students said that there are NOT any easily accessible platforms for counseling students and 47.7% didn’t know about whether there are such institutions or not. 84% of students think that there should be easily accessible platforms for proper guidance of students. And 81.8% feel that counseling can improve their mental health.
These are some other responses from students:
Students should be given complete guidance to get out of stress and they should be kept away from the elements that cause stress in them.
I think that there must be counselling department in colleges for students.
We need proper counselling about our studies and other issues.
Conclusion:
This is a very important issue. Mental health problems affect many areas of students’ lives. They reduce their quality of life, academic achievement, physical health, and satisfaction with the college experience. They also have negative impacts on relationships with friends and family. These issues also have long-term consequences affecting their future employment, earning potential, and overall health.
