Topic 1 Student mental health matters
Schools play a pivotal role in promoting children’s mental wellbeing and moral development and should inform students about the importance of mental health, whilst teachers are expected to be able to identify any mental health disorder or abnormality in students. According to WHO (2021), “[…] school experiences are vitally important in both children’s intellectual development and their psychological wellbeing, and evidence increasingly illuminates the close connection between emotional health and academic achievement”.
Educational establishments careful in fostering student’s mental health, can simultaneously enhance students’ school achievement “by attending to issues such as self-esteem and social wellbeing” (ibid.). On the other hand, children who experience psychological hardships “are more prone to academic failure and quitting school”, and unfortunately are more vulnerable in being targets for “child labour, substance abuse, criminal involvement and violence, as well as unemployment.” (ibid.).
Why student mental health matters
According to WHO’s manual on mental health in educational institutions (2021), schools should invest on their students’ mental health:
- To improve academic achievement rates and tackle the risk of early school leave.
- To support the students’ socialisation, and overall evolution, given that “emotionally healthy individuals” are more eager to build strong peer relationships, whereas the opposite scenario may trigger aggressive behaviours between peers.
- To emphasise that the School, being like a “second home” to the students, is constantly accessible for mental health promotion, prevention, and, where necessary, intervention.
- To detect as early as possible any signs of mental health abnormality and act accordingly to support the affected student.
- To increase students’ sense of belonging and support their active participation in the society.
- To fight child victimisation, and potential substance abuse.
