CBSE helpline gets 6,722 distress calls in first 14 days

New Delhi, Feb 14 (UNI) As many as 6,722 students, including the highest number 1,214 from West Bengal, have so far called the Central Board of Secondary Education's tele-counselling helpline, which commenced on February 1 for two months.

Delhi is a close second with 1,124 calls indicating high stress among the board-bound students.

However, the trend is reversed in Rajasthan and Kerala from where 36 and 37 calls have been made.

''The helpline has proved to be very popular among the students and the aim is to provide them maximum help...,'' CBSE Chairman Ashok Ganguly told a news conference.

Most of the pupils have sought help for memory loss, anxiety and poor concentration.

The CBSE Chairman said more number of boys were turning to the CBSE helpline compared to girls.

''This proves that girls are more focussed than boys,'' he said in a lighter vein.

As many as 42 principals, trained counselors from CBSE affiliated government and private schools, psychologists and social scientists are operating the helpline individually from 13 centres.

The list of helpline numbers is available on CBSE website www.cbse.nic.in.

The centres are located in Delhi, Chandigarh, Meerut, Noida, Jaipur, Gurgaon, Faridabad, Bhubneshwar, Vishakhapatnam, Coimbatore and Mumbai.

''Two new centres-- Jabalpur and Jamnagar-- have also been set up. Tele-counselling is being provided free of cost by these individual volunteers,'' Mr Ganguly said.

He said for the first time two new centres have been set up outside India in Yemen and Sharjah.

''With this there are total five helpline centres -- Dubai, Kuwait, Doha and Qatar-- operating abroad,'' he added.

''For better accessibility and convenience of the students, the centres have been arranged state-wise and the students are advised to call the numbers closer to their locations,'' he said.

Besides regular tele-counselling, CBSE is also offering counselling through a multi-tier system in order to enable more students to avail the facility.

The board has provided tele-counselling through Interactive Voice Response System (IVRS) mode for the third consecutive year, question-answer columns through leading national dailies and online counselling with the CBSE Director (Academic) and Controller of Examinations on [email protected] and [email protected].

CBSE website www.cbse.nic.in is also providing information about the examinations and the techniques to cope with the examination.

An NGO, Snehi, has also started its pre-examination helpline on 65978181 in the NCR region.

UNI