PESHAWAR: Experts have feared widespread prevalence of mental disorders among children in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa due to poverty and prolonged terrorism. They have called for school-based programmes to promptly rehabilitate the affected children and take preventive measures.

“The government should take lead and make budgetary allocation to sensitise parents and teachers about psychological and psychiatric problems of children through awareness programmes,” said Dr Mohammad Fazal Zeeshan, director postgraduate programme of Prime Institute of Public Health (PIPH).

He was addressing health policy forum held at Peshawar Medical College (PMC) on Thursday.

Dr Zeeshan, who led a study entitled ‘Mental health issues of schoolchildren in Peshawar’, said that mental disease affected students academically. Mental health programmes should be integrated in school health system to improve child health, he added.

Call for school-based programmes to rehabilitate affected children

The expert said that according to WHO’s estimate in 2011, 16 per cent Pakistanis had mental ailments but magnitude among local children might be higher in view of prolonged terrorism, which had forced mass exoduses. Eighty teachers from 27 schools were imparted training during the course of study, he said.

“We want the government to start work for capacity-building of teachers and parents. Two third of parents don’t find time to meet teachers and discuss progress of their children,” said Dr Zeeshan.

PMC Principal Prof Najibul Haq said that mental ailments affected more people than any other diseases and tackling children required a collective approach to get the desired outcome. He said that childhood education was of fundamental significance. The issue shouldn’t be seen in isolation but a collective approach by paediatricians, psychiatrists, psychologists and spiritual people was required, he added.

Pakistan Pediatrics Association president Prof Amin Jan Gandapur said that mental status of children was important component of health and volunteered services towards screening of schoolchildren.

He demanded of the provincial government to restore the school health services programme so that children could get health facilities in their schools. “We need to conduct short courses for teachers to help them identify their mentally-ill students for treatment,” he added.

The study, conducted in collaboration with International Paediatric Associations Foundation (IPAF), was aimed to contribute towards improvement of adolescent mental health by capacity building of teachers working in middle and high schools. It stressed the need for coordination between parents and teachers and updating existing training manual.

Provincial Minister for Education Atif Khan, who was chief guest on the occasion, said that the province had allocated Rs800 million for training of teachers. “Primary school was consisted of two rooms where six classes were held simultaneously and two teachers were teaching the students when we took over government. We raised the number of rooms to six, in addition to staffroom and principal office,” he said.

The minister said that a system of rewards and punishment was introduced and education was on path of progress. “We have also identified 5,000 primary schools where playing area will be provided to students,” he said.

The minister said that appointment of teachers was a political matter in the past which adversely affected the education of children. “We are taking steps to remove the sense of deprivation among the poor student most of whom visit public sector schools for education,” he added.

Dr Ihsanul Haq, Aqeel Raza and others also spoke on the occasion.

Published in Dawn, November 13th, 2015