Nowrin Jahan [not her real name], a lecturer at Jahangirnagar University, was harassed by one of her influential male colleagues a few years back. When she went to file a complaint with the university authorities, nobody cared.
After recovering from the severe mental trauma over a number of months, she took an initiative to open a psychological support centre at the university. She thought it would help the students recover from the psychological trauma, especially the female ones because they were the biggest victims of harassment from peers and supervisors.
The initiative was perfectly in line with the existing laws of the country but the university authorities never bothered this time either.
Dhaka University (DU) is among the very few private educational institutions in the country that happen to have a counselling wing for helping students get through their psychological issues.
But no student has ever gotten much counselling from there.
A female student of DU, seeking anonymity, said she once went to that centre after having suffered from severe depression for several days. She did not find too many people there who could offer counselling. The person in-charge listened to what she had to say and gave her a drug for relaxing. That was all the service she got.
Clinical psychology experts said at least 5% of students dropout from educational institutions after going through mental trauma due to different kinds of sexual and mental harassment.
They said suicidal tendencies among students have also been rising in recent times due to the same reasons.
They also expressed alarm that despite an order from the High Court, most educational institutions in the country do not maintain a psychological support centre for students. Neither do these institutions have any position for counsellors or advisors. Even if they do, the posts remain vacant most of the time, they said.
The High Court in 2009, in a landmark ruling, prohibited sexual harassment at educational institutions and issued an order for all such institutions to set up individual psychological counselling centres.
The Student Guidance and Counselling Centre of Dhaka University does not have a permanent post for a counsellor. The former students of the psychology department work there as advisors.
Professor Shahin Islam from DU’s Psychology department said the common students go through many different mental and psychological hardships, which often result in dropouts and sometimes even suicides.
The Dhaka Tribune has learnt that the public universities of Rajshahi, Chittagong and Khulna do not have posts for psychological support advisors. North South University and Brac University are among the private ones that do have the posts, however they are not permanent.
Mohammad Sadekul Islam, information officer of Rajshahi University, said, “We had a post for a student counsellor and guide. But it was dissolved in 1973. In 1980, a new post called Student Advisor was created.”
Teachers of the university said instead of providing students with counselling, the advisor dealt only with political issues.
Prof Mehtab Khanom from DU’s Psychology department said, “There is a shortage of good psychoanalysts. Even if the educational institutions give circulars, enough applications are never dropped.”
Medical students, on the other hand, claimed that they never felt interested about this discipline because there were not enough job opportunities.
Dr Kaderi, clinical psychologist of Dhaka Medical College and Hospital, said, “Every year many students pass from the department who are really interested and ready for these kind of jobs. But they hardly ever find permanent employment. Therefore, the authorities concerned must first think about creating permanent employment in this discipline.”