Concerns of Mental Health and the Clarion Call to Education
G. Balasubramanian
Educator, Former Director of Academics, CBSE
G. Balasubramanian is a doyen of school education in India. He has held several positions of leadership at CBSE, including Director Academics. He was the brain behind the introduction of several innovations at CBSE, which included frontline curriculum, communicative approach to language teaching, information technology, alternatives to homework, etc. He is also an author, poet and a sought-after speaker at educational conferences worldwide.
The recent report of the international study on Mental Health in about eighty-four countries has placed India at 60th position in its list. It has also been observed that the Mental Health Index of young adults in the age group of 18 to 34 shows a low figure of 33 per cent, which indicates a low level of mental health. It calls for urgent and positive action on this issue so that the most vital and vibrant section of the Indian populace is able to live with better health. It is said, “Without mental health, there is no health.” The seriousness of the issue calls for integrated, multi-dimensional and multi-pronged action to improve our national index to a better position sooner rather than later. It calls for a bifocal approach, with enforcement on one side and education on the other.
Though curative actions can both be clinical and non-clinical, preventive action is more necessary. The role of education in this direction cannot be underplayed. As such, our policies and programs of education have not adequately addressed this issue in the last few decades, as their focus has remained on a growth profile that was singularly entrepreneurial and on improving the standards of life rather than the quality of life. Recently, some educational boards have directed their affiliated schools to ensure more counsellors in schools at the rate of one counsellor for every 500 students. It appears more as an administrative action. The current situation is a clarion call and calls for more far-sighted action rather than mere firefighting.
Over and above these actions of the administrative agencies, educational institutions need to engage in more positive and purposeful action, realizing their social and moral obligation to create a generation of learners who would enjoy better mental health.
It is important to understand that the mental health of a nation is directly linked to the following: a. Productivity b. Economic health c. Social and cultural well-being d. Growth profile and GNP e. International profile and relationship
The following issues appear critical and need to be addressed soon:
1. Stress-free learning
The role of stress as a significant and powerful inhibitor to the holistic growth profile of a learner and consequently to one’s resultant mental health cannot be marginalised. Though attempts are being made to revisit curricula and examination patterns to decrease stress, it is felt that one important concern is the learning environment itself. Most institutions are focused on terminal activities leading to results, in total disregard of the processes of engagement within learning institutions. Divisive models classifying learners into categories depending on learning outcomes have led to an invisible classism and excessive appreciation of white-collar jobs, which is indeed an existing malady. Classification of institutions of learning into hierarchies and as ivory towers has done more damage than necessary. Heavy polarisation of glory toward a few subjects has created unhealthy competition for occupancy rather than aptitude. The resultant stress is built from the pre-primary stage till learners breathe out the aroma of celebrity institutions.
2. Need to celebrate learnability
The industrial model has focused on mass production and capitalising on its supply to a social system, whether such products are wanted or not. Artificial creation of market needs has resulted in unemployment and over-subscription to learning domains without taking cognizance of the faculties where it essentially exists. This compulsive need for learning ignored the competence and learnability of learners, both qualitatively and in harmony with the economic geography from which they come. Absence of scope for learnability created artificial subscriptions to productive domains with inferior quality. The entire atmosphere contributed to mental health issues of various dimensions.
3. Change dynamics
The scale and speed at which learning content, learning methods, learning resources and learning outcomes have been changing have put both institutions and individuals in uncertainty and in situations where they neither know the goal nor the pathway. Responding to immediate changes without appropriateness, merely to highlight their perception of growth, has resulted in the emergence of competitive institutions that do things because others are doing so. Unprepared faculty, inadequate resources and fragile curricula have led to mediocre quality in learning delivery and certification. Haunted by the speed of change, learners and institutions have suffocated. This has built an inherent negativity into the system and compromises the mediocre quality of learning and learners. The widening education-industry gap and emergent uncertainty have resulted in avoidable mental health issues.
Looking Beyond
1. Need for Life Skills
The current scenario indicates that a high population of adults in learning institutions are not adequately prepared with life skills so that they can face life with courage, conviction and compassion. Though sermons are delivered on a few educational platforms, the absence of empowered real-time life skills has affected their coping competencies in later life, resulting in mental health issues. This needs to be addressed through a solid foundation in life skills, which would help them in every field of work later in life.
“Education is not just about producing workers—it’s about cultivating resilient, balanced human beings. Without embedding mental health into learning, we compromise both individual futures and national progress.”
2. Need for Growth Mindset
It is essential to develop the younger generation with a growth mindset rather than merely a sustainability mindset. A growth mindset calls for attitudinal repositioning with the competence to take calculated risks for creativity, innovation and further research. Growth must be seen as an internal exercise to bring increasing harmony between the inner self and its call, and the external self and its realities. Growth comes along with a wilful, directed and self-motivated orientation toward change. It is engaging and transformational. Educational platforms should endorse, support and facilitate growth that is unique to each individual, and celebrate such growth, which would act as a catalyst to fertilise further growth. To add, celebration of the growth of every individual, however minuscule it may be, is vital to developing a healthy and happy mind.
3. Need for Empowering Mindfulness
In a world that is increasingly becoming consumerist, where there is an insatiable desire for possessions, both material and emotional, concepts of mindfulness would relieve stress related to assimilation, acquisition, possession and provocation. Self-awareness is not necessarily a contradiction to any meaningful relationship with the dynamic universe. It is possibly the act of positioning oneself adequately so that the Self is not swept away in the turbulence of distractions. It is an exercise in feeling the present, being in the present and experiencing the quality of one’s being. It is a dynamic engagement with one’s own existence. It is experiencing an undivided divinity that prevails within the Self. It is indeed a realization that triggers the power of giving, thus establishing the supremacy of the unlimited wealth one can draw from the universe from time to time. This learning would indeed help in producing positive human beings who would be compassionate, confident and caring contributors. With mindfulness, one becomes one’s own leader and develops the competencies of self-leadership.
It is important for all school heads to focus on and engage in strategic action in this regard.