• Fmr. int’l school principal Goolbai Gunasekara urges individual attention to students by teachers trained to manage students’ grievances  

Schools should reduce the number of students in order to prioritise attention to students’ mental health, a veteran educator with experience in the country’s private education sector, in particular international schools, suggested.

“There are a lot of schools in the country, especially Government schools, with 6,000-7,000 students and hence, there is no individual attention given to students,” educator and former Principal of the Asian International School, Goolbai Gunasekara said. “Therefore, we need to reduce student populations so that individual attention can be given to students.”

Further, Gunasekara said that despite students not getting enough attention, teachers often push students to achieve the highest marks possible at exams. “Teachers often put a lot of pressure on students to get the highest marks possible and that causes a lot of stress for students,” Gunasekara said. “There is a lack of awareness among the teaching community on how to manage students and therefore, comprehensive training should be provided for teachers.”

Moreover, Gunasekara noted that having a student counselor can make a positive change to students’ mental health, provided that the counselor is professionally trained to handle student grievances and protects the confidentiality of the students.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that nearly 14% of adolescents (those aged 10-19) experience a mental health condition; however, these go largely ignored and untreated. Factors such as stress, the enforcement of gender related norms, harsh parenting and violence including bullying have been found to negatively affect the mental health of adolescents. The WHO states that several of the mental health conditions affecting adolescents are emotional disorders such as anxiety and depression as well as eating disorders such as anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. According to H. Perera’s ‘Mental health of adolescent school children in Sri Lanka – A national survey’, almost one fifth of Sri Lankan students suffer from mental health problems.