‘Recession-hit’ students seek counselling to beat the stress

Chairperson of the Psychology department,Professor Harpreet Chhabra said,“I have many students coming to me seeking advice on matters pertaining to the unavailability of jobs. We have been holding workshops and counselling sessions in the past but now we aim to organise them in a bigger manner in order to give a platform to students to air their thoughts on recession.”

According to Professor Chhabra,it is more sensible to have a platform where steps to deal with recession can be told to the students and where they can have a healthy discussion on the issue.

Meanwhile,these workshops would be open to students of all departments. Dr Gurdeep Singh Training and Placement Officer at UIET said,“Stress levels are bound to rise as there were times when a student had more than one job in hand. Though we do not have any such counselling workshops as yet,there is a dire need for the same and we might plan something soon.”

Also,it is not just the faculty that students are sharing their tensions with. Experts outside the campus too are receiving individuals who want to beat stress caused due to expectations in their existing incentive-based jobs or for being jobless.

Talking to Newsline,Dr B S Chavan,Head of Psychiatry department at GMCH-32,said,“The primary reason why most individuals are seeking counselling is because of the stress associated with their jobs. A major share of professionals seeking counselling is constituted by the ones in incentive-based jobs like the corporate sector and BPOs. The educational institutes too should have regular counselling sessions for both parents as well as students.”

Edu dept to make student helpline round-the-year affair
To help students get rid of stress,the Education department has decided to extend the helpline service all through the year. Earlier,it was only functional during the exam season,that is,from February till April. Director Public Instructions (Schools),Samwartak Singh,said,“These days,children are very stressed due to different factors like academics,increased competition. Hence,it has become very important that children have someone they can talk their heart out. It is better to address a problem in its initial stage lest things get complicated. The helpline is an effort in this regard.” While the department is yet to finalise on the details of the helpline,authorities are hopeful that it will draw a good response. “Counsellors manning the helpline receive calls from far-off cities in Punjab as well as Haryana,” he said.