The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) launched a counselling app - Dost for Life - for students of classes 9 to 12 on May 10. The purpose of this counselling app is to improve students’ psycho-social wellness. Keeping the current COVID-19 situation in mind, this counselling app will help students to deal with depression, anxiety, internet addiction disorder, specific learning disability and more. CBSE has said that the app is available on the Google Play store which can be easily downloaded.
Through this app, CBSE will conduct free live counselling sessions for the students. This Dost for Life app will simultaneously facilitate students/ parents from all over the world who belong to CBSE schools. Live counselling sessions will be held on Wednesday and Friday. These sessions have a total of 83 volunteers, of which 66 are from India and 17 are from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Nepal, Oman, Kuwait, Japan and the USA. The counselling slot will be from 9.30 AM to 1.30 PM and from 1.30 PM to 5.30 PM. Parents and students will be able to join counselling through the chatbox.
The board has also issued a manual in which the participation of school, family and society for the psychological health of the students is discussed. It also includes a discussion on the circumstances arising out of the current epidemic. The manual is available at cbse.nic.in.
