Call CBSE helpline from 1st Feb

[dwarakesh]

To help students overcome anxiety and stress during board exams, several helpline numbers of the Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) will start functioning Sunday.

As a part of the board's outreach programme this year, it will start telephonic counselling, question-answer columns in newspapers, interactive voice response system (IVRS) and online counselling through the CBSE website.

"All the above modes of communication will remain open from Feb 1 to Apr 2 with a view to reach out to more and more examinees and their parents during the board exams," CBSE communication officer Rama Sharma said.

There are about 39 helpline centres in India and four abroad - Kuwait, Dubai, Doha and Sharjah - that will cater to the queries round the clock of students appearing for the board exams.

"For the first time, CBSE has included special educators to take care of the specially abled children from centres located at Mumbai and Delhi," Sharma said.

"This year as many as 43 principals, trained counsellors from CBSE affiliated schools, psychologists and social scientists will operate the helplines individually from India and overseas," she said.

Source: Timesofindia

[dwarakesh]

CBSE helpline flooded with anxious calls

With the first phase of the tele-counselling helpline run by the Central Board of Secondary Education becoming operational on Sunday, the counsellors have their hands full attending to the numerous calls.

Students of Class XII and X and their parents have been ringing up the tele-counsellors to share their worries and anxieties with them before the annual CBSE examinations get under way on March 2.

A number of students, it seems, are still not comfortable with the new pattern of the Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS). The CBSE had revised the design of question papers in all the major subjects of Classes XII and X to assess HOTS in children focusing on evaluating their abilities to reason and analyse than simply their memorising power. Based on the National Curriculum Framewok-2005, the Board had re-designed the question papers with effect from the March 2008 examinations.

"Some children have called up asking how to study for the questions analysing HOTS. One student even claimed he did not know about HOTS as his school had apparently not briefed him properly on the same," said Geetanjali Kumar, a CBSE counsellor for several years now.

"There have been some calls on how to prepare for HOTS questions. We tell the children that these would be application-based questions and they need not worry if their basic concepts are clear," said another counsellor, Anita Sharma, Principal of S.D. Public School at Pitampura in the Capital.

Students are also calling up the helpline with subject-related queries and want to know how they can secure better marks in the final examinations than their score in the pre-Board examinations.

Interestingly, parents have been ringing up not only to find out the "right" diet for their wards during the exam days, some even want tips on anger management!

"Some parents called up wanting to know how they should behave with their children. There was one parent who wanted to know how he should control his anger every time he saw his child wasting time instead of studying," said Ms. Kumar.

"It is all a matter of creating a dialogue at home. Parents must try and share their concerns with the children. They must try and listen to them and connect with them," she added.

Expectedly, Class X students have been calling up more often than those in Class XII, as this would be their first brush with the Board examinations.

"Several students of Class X say they have a problem with Social Science as they feel they tend to forget the subject easily. Over the last three years the trend has changed. Earlier I received more calls from the parents. That has reduced now and children talk themselves. However, parents of children in Class X generally call on their behalf," said counsellor B. Singh, who is a principal education officer.
Open till April 2

The CBSE helpline is available up to April 2. As many as 43 school Principals, trained counsellors from the CBSE-affiliated government and private schools, psychologists and social scientists are going to operate the helpline this year.

Source: Hindu