The Directorate of Samagra Shiksha Jammu and Kashmir today concluded a four-day series of orientation sessions for Head of Institutions of School Education Department on MANODARPAN- an initiative of Union Ministry of Education, to provide psychosocial support for mental health and well-being of students, teachers and families during COVID-19 and beyond under ATAMNIRBHAR BHARAT.More than 2000 HOIs from across all the districts of Jammu and Kashmir joined the online sessions with over 20,000 views on JKKN Facebook live. The programme was conducted through JK Knowledge Network, a digital platform under Samagra Shiksha J&K.Principal Secretary School Education, Dr.Asgar Samoon, stressed on the need of redressal of mental health issues among the children through Educators. He said that Manodarpan is an appropriate platform for this and asked for strict adherence to the prescribed guidelines under the programme.
He expressed optimism that this unique initiative of the government would ensure strong psychosocial support for mental health and well being of students and their families besides teachers. ‘Department of School Education is committed towards extending the much needed succour to children and parents during the COVID-19 pandemic’, Dr. Samoon added.In the inaugural address, Project Director Samagra Shiksha J&K, Dr.Arun Kumar Manhas, stressed the need of monitoring the students at individual level, so as to understand their personal issues and work for promoting their mental health and well-being. "The health of a child is priority in all our agendas and as an institutional head we must ensure that our teachers do resort to child friendly pedagogy", he maintained.The resource persons who shared their expertise during the session were Dr. Suman Sachdeva, expert on Life Skills from UNICEF India, Dr. Parveen Sayeed, State Head, Pratham Education Foundation and Danish Aziz, Education Specialist (J&K), UNICEF India.During the sessions, the participants were oriented on the Manodarpan guidelines and the plan of activities designed by Samagra Shiksha as part of Manodarpan.Pertinent to mention that Samagra Shiksha targets to orient all the HOIs of the UT in coming days followed by the capacity building of teachers on different aspects of Manodarpan.