Why in news?
The Mental Healthcare bill was approved recently by Parliament.
What does the Act guarantee?
- Stigmatising a mentally ill person and denying him or her necessary treatment will be illegal according to the act.
- The act talks about special provision where public institutions such as universities are urged to treat mental health as a valuable public good in its own right.
What are the issue in Higher education?
- Mental health takes a back seat even within something as significant as a doctoral programme.
- PhDs demand long-standing commitment on the part of the students and their beloved.
- Over five-plus years, students learn to grapple with hypotheses, narrative frameworks, and research methods.
- This stress might cause social regression which may affect doctoral candidates.
- Apart from this there exists social and caste discrimination inside campus which further adds fuel to the stress level.
- Thus the new Act talks about the necessity of teacher student interaction which might help reduce the stress level.
- University spaces should be an area free from social stigma, unnecessary prejudices and should have freedom to express and believe in oneself.
Source: The Hindu
