Schools enthusiastically offer career counselling. But little to no attention is given to student's personal matters
KARACHI: Grief is rampant in Pakistan. The old have learned to adapt to it through experience, but what of the young? The physical problems of the nation are not the only dangers which our children are facing today. Peer pressure, academic competition, pressure from parents to get good grades all define their lives. And most important of all, seeing bloodshed on the streets everyday on their way to school also has an adverse impact on their minds, which have become ticking time bombs, filled with psychological distress and frustration, ready to blow up at any second. In order to help them overcome the battlefield that is their minds, there should be proper psychological counselling in schools.
Schools are enthusiastically offering career counselling these days. But little to no attention is given to the personal matters of a student in a time when compassion is of utmost importance. A single conversation can make a lot of difference in a young person’s life. And in an age when a child feels at his/her most vulnerable, I urge public and private schools’ officials that, perhaps, in the future, when issuing advertisements for the job of career counsellor, the job title should be referred to as “guidance counsellor” instead, for the sake of the student body and the future of the nation’s mental health.
Syeda Maheen Qadri
Published in The Express Tribune, March 19th, 2015.
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