SCHOOLING INTERRUPTED

Education is one of the most important aspects of childhood. But, increasingly, many children are feeling a reluctance to attend school. The reasons are serious and psychological, say psychiatrists, who add that with the right guidance and a touch of compassion the child can be coaxed back into the classroom

Shreya Bhandary | TNN

Eight-year-old Sonia Pradhan was a normal student who loved extra-curricular activities as well as studying. However, Sonia gradually began to make excuses to not attend school. Her excuses became more frequent over time and her mother realized something was wrong.
“Everyday she would complain of headaches, stomach aches, body ache, fever and so on. She would excuse herself from going to school. We visited many neurosurgeons to understand what the problem was and they all told us that the problem was psychological,” said Sonia’s mother, Manisha.
Five years after the excuses first began cropping up, Sonia has begun attending school again, but she still finds it difficult to attend regularly.
Psychiatrists diagnose her problem as ‘school phobia’ or ‘separation anxiety’. Separation anxiety occurs when a child becomes anxious as he or she has become separated from the primary caregiver, usually the mother. Psychiatrists say they have been dealing with an increasing number of school phobia and separation anxiety cases.
“The reasons for school phobia could be anything from eve teasing at school to a strict teacher to problems at home that affect the child’s emotions and psychology. An increasing number of parents have been coming to us with such problems now,” said Dr Harish Shetty, a psychiatrist.
Sonia has been attending regular counselling sessions with a psychiatrist for the past five years after much deliberation by her family. “This is not mental instability but psychological instability and I knew my daughter needed help. But I had a tough time convincing my family,” said Manisha, who is part of a joint family.
Similar problems had to be tackled by the Malhotras after 11-year-old Puneet began displaying such behaviour. A sudden attack of asthma hit his mother while Puneet was at home and he then became filled with the fear that he might lose her forever. “He thought that he might lose his mother if he wasn’t around her all the time. He would cry all the time or suddenly start coughing to the extent that he would throw up and still keep coughing,” said Neelu Malhotra, Punnet’s aunt.
As in Sonia’s case, the Malhotras needed convincing to get professional help. “We knew the problem was psychological, but my brother-in-law was dead set against visiting a psychiatrist,” said Neelu.
While in class, Puneet would suddenly walk out as he felt “suffocated”. Soon, he began returning home from school after one or two lectures. After detailed discussions between the doctor, parents and school representatives, it was decided that Punnet could skip classes till he was ready to return to school. “My nephew didn’t attend school for an entire year when he was in Class VII. All that time he attended regular sessions with a psychiatrist and his parents kept consoling him to ward off his panic,” said Neelu.
Sonia, meanwhile, showed stronger signs of refusal. “She would throw things at us to keep us away,” said the girl’s mother. “Once, she locked herself in the room and tied a cloth around her neck. We were too shocked to react.” That was when her family finally decided to approach a psychiatrist.
Dr Shetty stresses that there is no quick-fix cure in such cases. “Schools as well as families need to understand that the healing is a very slow process,” he said.
While in both of the above cases, separation anxiety was termed as the sole cause of the behaviour, city psychiatrists say a number of school phobia cases have also been reaching their clinics.
In many cases, it is children with a very high IQ who are slowly opting to not attend school. “I am currently treating a child who hasn’t gone to school for three weeks,” said Dr Shubhangi Parkar, head of the psychiatry ward, KEM Hospital. “She was yelled at by a teacher and when she shared this with her mother she was again yelled at for being mischievous. The child then completely stopped sharing her feelings with anybody.” Parkar added that while such problems arise partly at schools, the major contributors to such fears come from immediate friends and relatives.
With the help of psychiatrists, both Sonia and Puneet gradually began attending lectures again. “Puneet would get fully dressed for school but only go up to the school gate for some days. A few weeks later he started walking into the school premises and then began attending one lecture a day,” said Neelu. She added that school authorities were very helpful and supportive throughout.
It took more than six months for Sonia to start going to class again, but the problem is far from solved. “I still wake up with the fear that my daughter will suddenly announce that she will not go to school,” said Manisha, who has started taking math tuitions herself. “Since she’s not attending school, at least I need to be up to date with her portion.”
(Names of students and their relatives have been changed.)
GOING
BACK TO SCHOOL
School phobia and separation anxiety are the result of psychological, and not mental, instability
Children coming from overly protective families and single children (those without siblings) are more prone to be affected
Children with a higher IQ are also likely to opt out of school
Returning from a long vacation can have its effects too, with children deciding they don’t want to return to a classroom
School phobia can result from excessive scolding at school and/or home , though maintaining discipline at home is important so that an institutional environment with rules and regulations does not seem alien
Sexual harassment or abuse can also bring on school phobia. Such cases have to be dealt with even more sensitively
Along with the affected child, the parents can also undergo counselling to better understand the problem
The healing process in such situations is slow. It could take months, sometimes years. Patience plays a key role
Always involve the school authorities in the process. In fact, the student, parents and school should work together. Seek the help of psychiatrists

6,000km-long river found 13,000ft below the Amazon

London:Scientists led by an Indian-origin researcher have discovered a huge underground river which they believe is flowing some 13,000 feet beneath the mighty Amazon River in Brazil.

The researchers at Brazil’s National Observatory believe the subterranean river is about 6,000km long, about the same length as the Amazon on the surface.

The finding came from studying temperature variations at 241 inactive oil wells drilled in the 1970s by Brazil’s state-run oil company Petrobras.

The researchers have named the river ‘Hamza’, after team supervisor Dr Valiya Hamza, an Indian-origin scientists who has been studying the region for over four decades.

According to Dr Hamza, the “thermal information” provided by Petrobras allowed his team of researchers to identify the movement of water 13,100ft under the Amazon River. He said that the flow of the underground river which follows a similar contour to the Amazon has been estimated at 3,000 cubic meters per second.

It is believed that the river originates from the region of Acre and reaches the sea at Foz do Amazonas, flowing through the basins of rivers Solimoes, Amazona and island Marajo.

“It is likely that this river is responsible for the low level of salinity in the waters around the mouth of the Amazon,” the National Observatory said.

However, the researchers said the studies examining the underground river were still in their preliminary stage but they would confirm the subterranean flow by the end of 2014. PTI

THE UNDERWORLD: Researchers have named the river Hamza after the Indian-origin team supervisor Valiya Hamza

Green wonder: This erasable paper can be used 260 times

Taipei: “i2R e-Paper” is paper but not paper as we know it — not yet, anyway, say its Taiwan developers.

The product uses a thermal printer, the same kind as that used in fax machines. When the message is no longer needed, the paper can be erased with the flip of a switch — ready to be used up to 260 times. Researchers at the Industrial Technology Research Institute, where the paper was developed, say it is the ideal replacement for the paper signs and posters that are now produced by the millions around the world.

“I think the greatest breakthrough was that traditional display devices usually require electricity to write, but our technology made it closer to how we would use normal paper,” said John Chen, Vice President of the Institute and general director of the Display Technology Center. “First, it does not require patterned electrodes — it is very light, soft and rewritable. This is a true e-paper.”

What makes “i2R e-paper” stand out is its coating is a plastic film covered with cholestric liquid crystal, a type of liquid crystal structured similarly to cholesterol molecules. REUTERS

Thin band of anti-matter enveloping Earth found It Confirms Magnetic Field Can Trap Anti-Protons: Experts

London: Planetary scientists claim to have for the first time spotted a thin band of anti-matter particles, called anti-protons, enveloping the Earth. The find, published in the ‘Astrophysical Journal Letters’, confirms theoretical work that predicted the Earth’s magnetic field could trap antimatter, according to a team led by the University of Bari.

The astronomers say that a small number of anti-protons lie between the Van Allen belts of trapped “normal” matter. The antiprotons were spotted by the Pamela satellite launched in 2006 to study the nature of high-energy particles from the Sun and from beyond our Solar System — so-called cosmic rays, the ‘BBC’ reported.

These cosmic ray particles can slam into molecules that make up the Earth’s atmosphere, creating showers of particles. Many of the cosmic ray particles or these “daughter” particles they create are caught in Van Allen belts, doughnut-shaped regions where Earth’s magnetic field traps them.

The new analysis shows that when Pamela passes through a region called the South Atlantic Anomaly, it sees thousands of times more anti-protons than are expected to come from normal particle decays, or from elsewhere in the cosmos. The astronomers say this is evidence that bands of anti-protons, analogous to Van Allen belts, hold anti-protons in place — at least until they encounter the normal matter of atmosphere, when they “annihiliate” in a flash of light.

The band is “the most abundant source of anti-protons near the Earth”, said Alessandro Bruno, team member.
“Trapped anti-protons can be lost in the interactions with atmospheric constituents, especially at low altitudes where the annihilation becomes the main loss mechanism. Above altitudes of several hundred kilometres, the loss rate is significantly lower,” he added. PTI

MISSION ADMISSION

Hat-trick of delays: Most FYJC colleges to start only by mid-Aug

Shreya Bhandary & Yogita Rao | TNN

It’s the second week of August, but first-year junior college (FYJC) lectures across almost all city colleges have yet to begin, with more than 5,000 students still waiting to be assigned a seat. Principals are worried that with another list scheduled to be announced on August 12, before offline admissions begin on August 16, lectures will be delayed even further. The fact that professors have to cover a revised syllabus means that pressure on students and faculty members will intensify.
A few colleges such as St Xavier’s and HR Colleges in south Mumbai have already started lectures, but they are the exceptions. In fact, most principals say that with the delays in the online admission process, they don’t even know how many seats are vacant or the total number of students who have secured their seats.

M B Kekare, principal of Patkar Varde College in Goregaon (W) said that lectures will begin only by mid August. “We don’t believe in starting lectures before students have been allotted seats. Once the online admission process is over, our vacant seats will be put up for offline admissions. Our classes won’t begin until all students secure a seat,” said Kekare.

Many colleges are now waiting for a circular from the office of the deputy director of education (school) before they announce the induction programs for their students.

Apart from the delay in the admission process, the coming long weekend from August 13 to 15 has many colleges wondering how they will complete the admission process in time.

A handful of colleges, however, have already started classes with whatever strength that has been allotted to their respective streams. “We arranged the induction session for the new batch last weekend itself and started classes on Monday. We will conduct remedial classes for those students whose names appear in the fifth list,” said Fr Frazer Mascarenhas, principal of St Xavier’s College. H R College at Churchgate, also started their first day of lectures on Monday. “We had very few seats left for the last list and were surprised and happy to see our classes full on the first day itself,” said Deepika Bhatia, vice-principal of H R College.

Over 5K students left out in ‘last’ list

For The First Time Since Admissions Went Online 3 Yrs Ago, Edu Dept To Issue Special Merit List For Those Without Colleges

Cut-Offs For Science & Arts Fall Drastically, But Only A Marginal Dip In Commerce

Yogita Rao and Shreya Bhandary | TNN

Mumbai: More than 5,000 students have still not been allotted seats in junior colleges even after the third and final general merit list was announced on Monday. For the first time since the online admission system was introduced three years ago, the school education department will put up a ‘special’ merit list on August 12 for these students. Last year, despite technical glitches and confusion over the Best-5 policy, a relatively fewer number of students—around 4,400—were not allotted seats online. Parents and students are not amused and said that this time round, there was no excuse for the education department to not account for all the students.

“Every year, the education department says there’s no reason to worry as there are more seats than students. Yet every year, thousands of students are left out of the online system. Why is that?” asked one angry parent.

A total of 48,944 students were allotted seats in the third general list; of these 28,524 students were assigned colleges for the first time while the rest were those who were eligible for the betterment option. It’s worth noting that while cutoffs in the science and arts streams have dropped noticeably in the third list, cut-offs among commerce colleges are still on the higher side—reflecting the popularity of the course.

The third merit list left many students—especially those who had chosen commerce—disappointed as they were unable to get a seat in a top-rung college. The admissions at NM College, for instance, closed at a high 92.50%. At HR College, the cut-off was 90%.

Kirti Narain, principal of Jai Hind College, Churchgate, said: “We have 60-70 seats still vacant in the commerce stream. The cut-off for commerce has gone down by just over one percent, but the science list has dropped from 91.86% to 86.54%.” The college has more than 200 vacant seats in all the streams.

Cut-offs for science at K J Somaiya College in Vidyavihar dropped by 4%. Principal Vijay Joshi said, “There are too many cancellations happening because of the betterment option. Students who have already sought admissions in bifocals are getting repeated allotments in the general list as well, which is why the cut-offs were high in the previous lists. But many students finally secured their seats, the cut-offs dropped drastically.” “The merit list was the last chance for students to exercise the betterment option. Once they secure their seat, we will know exactly how many seats are vacant. We can then accommodate the remaining 5,191 students,” said an official from the office of the deputy director of school education. “We will come out with the special list at 10am on August 12. Students will have to secure their seats by August 13.”

Admission In Numbers

Students who were allotted seats for the first time in the third list: 23,333 n Students with betterment options: 25,611

Students who have not been assigned any seat: 5,191

What next?
A special list will be announced on August 12 at 10am for students who have not been assigned a college. There is no betterment option for this list n Students who have been allotted seats in the special list will have to finalize admissions on August 12 and 13 Offline admissions | Will start on August 16 Students eligible for offline admissions

More than 22,000 students who have failed in either one or two subjects can avail the keep term (ATKT) scheme n Students from international schools affiliated with the Cambridge International Examination (CIE) boardn Students who have not managed to secure their seat in the online process even after the August 12 list Times View

For students, the path to junior college should herald a stimulating and exciting experience. Instead, it has become a harrowing experience for families, as students—after the stress of sitting for a board exam—are made to jump through hoops to secure a seat. Despite no last-minute government policies and no technical glitches, the online admission process was delayed for the third consecutive year. What’s worse is that thousands of students have been left out yet again. Instead of enjoying their first few months of college and participating in campus festivals, they will now have to make up for lost time to cover the upgraded syllabus. In other states, the authorities are looking at ways to ensure that teenagers are not put through unnecessary angst. In Mumbai, though, the education department has yet to get its act together.

‘Why HSC if you sat for CBSE school exam?’

Shibu Thomas TNN
Mumbai: “You have exercised your option (for school exams) with open eyes,” the Bombay High Court on Monday reminded a CBSE student who had sought orders that would allow her to apply for the online admissions to first year junior college.

“If you wanted to take admission in a good college, why did you take the option of school exams?” asked a division bench of Justice D K Deshmukh and Justice Rajesh Ketkar.

The court was hearing a petition filed by Shruti Mathuria, a student of Rajhans Vidyalay, who scored 93% in her Standard X exams in CBSE. She had approached the court saying her chances of admission to top colleges in Mumbai had been affected due to the controversy over board exams versus school exams. Mathuria’s lawyer Aniket Nikam said the school had issued a letter to students saying both board exams and school exams would be treated on par. He sought time to furnish the document.

But the judges said that if they wanted an adjournment, the girl’s parents would have to pay a Rs 10,000 fine for wasting the time of the court. Arguing his case before the bench, Nikam said: “This is a question of the careers of thousands of CBSE students.” The judges replied: “Don’t think you are a leader for the students,” said the HC.

The state’s advocate said this year that around 1.24 lakh students had applied for admissions online. “Already, 50% of the admissions are finalized, and the first list will be out on Tuesday,” the advocate said. In fact, in August 2010 a circular had been issued laying down the difference between school-based and board exams. Nikam had argued that students were given to understand that both exams would be treated at par: “The papers for the school exams are set by the board, vetted by the board and even the mark-sheet is issued by the board.”

To which, the judges asked: “If you have appeared for CBSE exams, why do you now want to go for the state board?” The next hearing is scheduled on July 13.

School Versus Board Exam T he CBSE had introduced a new system of examination called comprehensive and continuous education (CCE) where 60% of the marks would be awarded by the school and the remaining 40% would be based on internal school exams or board exams depending upon what the student opted for. Students who appeared for school exams instead of the boards cannot participate in the online admission s to state-run colleges. They will get the chance to apply to junior colleges only once the online process is completed.