Workshop on anti-ragging and stress management held for students from three departments of JU

Kolkata: Workshop on anti-ragging and stress management was held for the second and third year students of three departments — Bengali, Sanskrit and Philosophy — of the Jadavpur University (JU) at the Open Air Theatre (OAT) on Monday.

The workshop will continue to be held for other departments as well. Three departments per workshop will be taken up due to constraints in the number of counsellors present and it will be conducted in a phase manner, an official in the university said. It is being conducted by the Centre for Counselling Services and Studies in Self-Development of Jadavpur University.

The University’s website states: “It (the Centre) is closely associated with reputed mental health professionals and mental health organisations all over India which greatly helps in improving the kind of research undertaken by the Centre. There is a huge demand for the service provided and the courses run by the Centre.”

The one-hour-fifteen-minutes-long group session was attended by at least 130 students. According to Centre’s deputy coordinator Samar Kumar Mondal, these sessions are voluntary and not compulsory. This kind of workshop was being planned ever since the first year undergraduate student of the varsity’s Bengali department died after falling from the second floor balcony of the varsity’s main boys hostel. The internal inquiry committee of the university in its reports has stated that the deceased was a victim of ragging and it was prevalent in the main boys’ hostel.

The student’s death has streamlined discussions on mental health and students had sought for a sensitisation programme to be arranged for the senior students. The workshop was conducted keeping this in mind and according to a source, workshops will also be conducted for first year students.

During the workshop which was held on Monday, 14 psychological counsellors and two psychologists were present. The Centre has one clinical psychologist and one psychiatrist, while the position of psychological counsellor remains vacant.

A source in the university said that the ex-students of the Centre have shown interest to help in providing mental health services to the

first-year students.