The Union Human Resource Development Minister Ramesh Pokhriyal 'Nishank' has asked the IITs to address the mental health related issues of their students during the lockdown period. It has also instructed the institutes to set up helpline for dealing with the issues.
The HRD Minister on April 1 chaired a meeting through video conference with the directors all 23 IITs to review the preparedness of institutions in wake of COVID-19.
"Mental health-related challenges of students during the lockdown period also need to be addressed by all the institutes and a helpline be established in this regard. There should be a task force set up by every institute which should include psychologists to handle mental health issues," he said.
The Minister instructed that Mental health-related challenges (during the #lockdown period) of students
— Ministry of HRD (@HRDMinistry) April 2, 2020
should be addressed by all the institutes & a helpline should be established in every institute to deal with these issues.
In his address to the Directors, Mr Pokhriyal advised that they should ensure that all the higher education institutes around them are trained in the field of online.
He said this time could be used to make online education more innovative and institutions should leverage the courses on SWAYAM portal and work on the credit transfer mechanism.
Mr Pokhriyal assured that the HRD Ministry will provide full support to any institute/student/faculty who wants to conduct or are currently doing research around coronavirus.
The minister has also asked the institute to prepare academic calendars so that students do not lose summer and winter internships.
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