1. Appointment of counselors in all schools to
cater to the emotional/psychological needs of children: The
counselors should provide services for prevention, early identification
and management of child abuse, support children with emotional and
psychological problems, and children from broken families, and render
bereavement counseling as well. In schools where a child counselor
cannot be appointed, at least one teacher should be empowered to take on
the role of a counselor after receiving adequate training in child and
adolescent psychology. IAP could be the nodal agency to impart this
training.
2. Schools should be a zero discrimination zone:
No child should be discriminated against based on his/her gender,
religion or caste, social class, by virtue of being differentially abled
or suffering from chronic illnesses. This would include provision for
wheel chair access to class rooms and play areas, reading aids for the
visually challenged and listening aids for the hearing impaired. HIV
positive children should be treated with dignity and not discriminated
against. A watchdog committee should oversee the implementation of this
strategy, look into complaints and take redressal action.
3. Child centered education facilities with
provision for individualized education through resource room training
for slow learners and poor achievers: There should be at least one
special teacher in every school to impart remedial training to children
with learning disabilities. If services of special teachers cannot be
made available, one teacher should be given training in remedial
education.
4. Child psychology training to all teachers:
This will help in prevention, early identification and referral of
children in need of child psychiatry evaluation.
5. Effective school health services for detection
and referral of physical and mental health problems:
We feel that the Indian Academy of Pediatrics with more
than 17000 members and a committed leadership at the helm could take a
proactive stand in order to make both the physical and psychological
environment of our schools child friendly.