Education Minister Dipu Moni said the government is imparting training to 200,000 secondary school teachers on student counseling to boost students' self-confidence so they can prevent social curses like suicides on Monday.
"We are providing training to 200,000 secondary-level school teachers on student counseling under a programme," she said while speaking about the trend of committing suicide among students at a view-exchange meeting with journalists at her ministry office.
Education Reporters Association of Bangladesh (Erab) and the Education Ministry jointly organized the meeting with Erab President Abhijit Bhattacharjya in the chair.
The minister said that usually, the students commit suicide due to depression as they sometimes feel academic or family pressure and unemployment problems.
"So, there is no alternative to counseling to boost their self-confidence," she added.
Noting that a module has been prepared by counseling experts and psychiatrists for the training programme, Dipu Moni said the government has a target of ensuring at least two expert teachers at every school across the country for students' counseling.
Speaking about the university's student counseling cell, she said all universities already have a student counseling cell, "but we will sit with the university vice-chancellor council soon to know about the current situation of the cell and give further directives to strengthen its activities".
Asked about any possibility of changing the class time for educational institutions, the minister said, the government has taken the decision considering the overall situation like guardians' office hours, therefore there is no scope for changing the class time.
Regarding the two-day weekly holiday for educational institutions, Dipu Moni said, "If it would have been possible to fix Thursday and Friday as weekly holidays for schools and colleges, the capital would see less traffic for three days in a week".
But, considering the students' safety and security, the holidays have been fixed in line with the general weekly holidays, she added.
