Lucknow, Nov 24 (IANS): The Uttar Pradesh government will now make an assessment of the mental health and intelligence quotient of students of the state-run schools.
The assessment, as per officials, will help the government address the issues of primary and secondary students so that they perform better in the future.
For this, the Bureau of Psychology, Prayagraj, has prepared a questionnaire.
There are 48 questions with five optional answers -- Agree, Disagree, Neutral, Strongly Agree, and Strongly Disagree.
This will be sent to schools where teachers will take the responses of students and send them back to Prayagraj. Subsequently, psychologists will assess their answers and prepare a report based on them.
Usha Chandra, director of the Bureau of Psychology, Uttar Pradesh, said, "Our sole aim is to ensure that students in primary and secondary schools perform well academically. Our experts have prepared a questionnaire to assess the mental health and intelligence quotient of students studying in council schools. We will try to figure out if students are facing any problems at the school level or if anything is lagging at the parents' front."
The draft questions have been sent from the office of the Bureau of Psychology to the Basic Education Officers of all 75 districts. Teachers will be given the responsibility to assess the mental health of children based on the responses given by students.
Initially, the exercise will be carried out in 150 schools in every district. Gradually, it will be covered by all public schools.
The experts of the Bureau of Psychology will evaluate the responses of students and come up with a report suggesting measures to be taken to address the problems (if any). After that, an exercise will be carried out to improve the learning skills of students.
Along with this, a special plan will be prepared to ensure that academically weaker children are on par with other students.
The data of mental health assessment will remain confidential as per the letter sent to Basic Education Officers.