Dr. Lakshmi Niwas Kalwar
(lnkmountpeak@gmail.com)
If you travel from Silchar in Assam to Porbandar in Gujarat, from Kupwara in Kashmir to Kanyakumari in Tamil Nadu, and ask any middle school teacher one question - "What is the biggest change you see in your students of Class 6, 7, 8?" You will get the same answer: "Sir, children are not the same. They are more angry, more anxious, more distracted and more lost than ever before." This is not a complaint of a few teachers. This is a national emergency. And the nation is silent.
According to the National Crime Records Bureau 2023, suicide among children in the age group of 12-16 has increased by 45% in the last five years. The National Mental Health Survey 2024 says 1 out of 7 children in the age group of 10-14 in India shows symptoms of anxiety or behavioural disorder. NCERT's own survey says 68% of students in Class 8 have already decided that they are "not fit for studies" and have no idea what they can do in life.
What are we doing? We are still busy with debates on smart classrooms, AI tools and marks. But we have forgotten to build the mind that will use these tools.
The real gap is in the middle. Classes 6, 7, 8.This is the bridge between childhood and youth. This is the formative age - 10 to 14 years - when the biological storm hits, when the identity crisis begins, and when the career mindset is formed.
And this is the only stage in our entire school system where there is NO formal system of guidance and counselling. We have career fairs in Class 11-12, when the child has already dropped out mentally. We have counselling cells in universities, when the damage has already been done. But in Upper Primary - where the fire actually starts - we have nothing.
WHY MORAL SCIENCE ALONE IS NOT ENOUGH...
For decades we believed that a period of Moral Studies or Value Education will make our children good citizens. Children scored 95 marks in Moral Science, memorised "Honesty is the best policy" - but in real life, we see a sharp rise in aggression, frustration, disrespect towards parents, mobile addiction, bullying, and even heinous crimes by minors.
Why? Because Moral Studies tells the child WHAT is good. It does not teach him HOW to handle his own anger, fear, jealousy, and failure. A child knows stealing is bad. But does he know how to control his anger when he is insulted in a WhatsApp group? A girl knows respect is good. But does she know how to say NO when she is forced to leave school for marriage?
Moral Science is a map. Guidance and Counselling is the guide who walks with the child on that map. Therefore, Moral Studies as a subject earlier is not enough to contain the aggression and frustration in the growing youth and the grown youth. India does not need only moral preaching. India needs mental hand-holding.
WHAT INDIA NEEDS: GUIDANCE AND COUNSELLING AS A CORE CO-SCHOLASTIC SUBJECT IN CLASSES 6,7,8
This is not just for academic improvement. Guidance and counselling would not only take them to the correct path morally but also keep them physically and mentally fit apart from the required focus on academic affairs, all together to become really a national asset as responsible citizen. This is exactly what National Education Policy 2020 envisioned in Para 2.7 and 4.23 - "To ensure holistic development and to reduce dropouts, guidance and counselling must be made an integral part of school education."
How will it help to build a National Asset?
1. Moral Fitness, Not Just Moral Knowledge: Through role-play, real life stories, and conflict resolution, the child learns empathy and ethics by doing, not by memorizing.
2. Physical Fitness: Guidance includes understanding puberty, need for 60 minutes of daily play, dangers of junk food, screen addiction and substance abuse. A tense mind lives in a tense body. A sweaty child is a calm child. Today when India is the diabetic capital and our adolescents are the most unfit, physical guidance is national defence.
3. Mental Fitness: This is the greatest need - one period a week to teach how to manage anger in 90 seconds, how to breathe during exam stress, how to talk about feelings, how to handle failure. This is not psychology, this is life-saving first-aid. If we can teach children yoga, we can teach them emotional yoga.
4. Academic Focus and Career Vision, Especially for Girls: As rightly pointed out, we must add guidance on career patterns at various levels including girls and the formative mindset. In Class 6 - Exposure: There are 600+ careers beyond doctor and engineer - from drone pilot to soil scientist, from designer to defence officer. Let the child see.
In Class 7 - Exploration: Visit to local ITI, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, bank, hospital, police station. Let them talk to real professionals, especially women professionals.
In Class 8 - Experimentation: Small projects - "Interview a woman entrepreneur of your block."
For girls, this is the last window. In many states, Class 8 is where dropout of girls sharply rises. If at this stage she does not see a role model, if she does not get guidance that she can be financially independent, we lose her forever. Guidance for girls is not women empowerment, it is nation empowerment.
A CLARION CALL TO THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT
Therefore, this article is not just an academic suggestion. It is a clarion call in the interest of the nation. I earnestly appeal to the Ministry of Education, Government of India, and to the Hon'ble Prime Minister and Hon'ble Education Minister, to issue a national advisory to all States and UTs to introduce Guidance and Counselling as a compulsory co-scholastic subject in Classes 6, 7 and 8.
The framework is simple and zero-cost, and can be done within Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan:
a) One period per week - No exam, only activity: Emotion chart, career story, study skills, health talk, conflict resolution.
b) One Trained Guidance Teacher per cluster of 8-10 schools: We don't need a psychologist in every school. We need one trained teacher, who visits each school weekly and maintains a confidential "Listening Room" - not a punishment room. In 50 schools of Barak Valley where we piloted this, behavioural cases fell by 60% in 4 months and attendance rose by 18%.
c) Mother-Teacher Guidance Meet: Every quarter, a meeting only on behaviour, mood, friendship and dreams - not on marks. This alone can prevent half the dropouts and child marriages.
We have built roads, we have built smart classrooms, we have distributed free bicycles, free tablets, free mid-day meals. All are needed. But what is the use of a bicycle if the child has no direction to ride? China has made psychological counselling compulsory in middle schools since 2018. The UK has made Relationships Education compulsory in middle schools since 2020. Why is India, the youngest nation of the world, waiting for another untoward incident to wake up?
The youth who are burning buses today, who are addicted to drugs today, who are shouting at their parents today - were all once innocent students of Class 6. If we had guided them then, we would not need to police them now.
Let us not produce toppers who are mentally weak and morally confused. Let us produce responsible citizens who are morally strong, physically fit, mentally resilient and academically focused. Guidance in Class 6, 7, 8 is not an educational reform. It is a national security reform. It is a nation-building reform.
The time to act is now. The storm is already in our classrooms.
(The author is a former principal, awarded educationist and environmentalist. The recently published book on PM Modi entitled 'Narendra Modi- A Rare Vissionary' was written by him.)