The Minister of Education and Vocational Training, Pilar Alegría, has announced the creation of a Mental Health Plan, endowed with 5 million euros, which will be carried out in collaboration with the autonomous communities.
TDB keeps you informed. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram
“The percentage of children and adolescents with mental or behavioural disorders has increased following the pandemic,” said Alegría. “The Ministry is developing a plan to tackle this problem in the education system,” she added.
The minister highlighted the worrying increase in mental and behavioural disorders among students, a problem that is being addressed by the Ministry’s working group on coexistence with the autonomous communities within the Sectorial Conference on Education.
The Mental Health Plan on which this group is working, and which forms part of the 2021-2024 Mental Health and COVID-19 Action Plan presented by the Government last October, will give special importance to teacher training, providing them with tools to help them identify and act in these situations.
Improving coexistence in schools
The minister made this announcement during the opening of the 7th State Congress on Coexistence, which is being held until Saturday in Logroño. The event, which has not taken place since 2008, is organised by the Ministry of Education and Vocational Training in collaboration with the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sport and Youth of the Government of La Rioja and brings together around 600 teachers and experts from all over the country.
In addition to the mental and emotional health of children, the minister emphasised in her speech the figures on bullying, especially cyberbullying, a phenomenon that has also grown with the pandemic and one of the main topics of this Congress “given the high rates of bullying on networks, the addiction to being hyper-connected from an early age and all its derivatives”, as she explained.
In fact, the Cybercoexistence Working Group of the State Observatory for School Coexistence will present a preview of the guide of recommendations on cyber existence for educational centres drawn up together with the National Institute of Cybersecurity (INCIBE) and aimed at promoting the proper use of technologies, the safety of minors on the Internet and the coexistence of all the actors that make up the school environment: students, teachers and families.
“Learning to live together is not only a learning process in itself but also helps to improve and enhance academic learning”, the minister stressed. “We know that emotions influence learning. In turn, a student’s cognitive performance, with all its academic and social consequences, has a decisive influence on their emotional stability, confidence and self-esteem”, she added.
Education in values to improve coexistence
The educational reform launched by the government aims, among other things, to reinforce learning to live together with the introduction of the subject of Civic and Ethical Values in primary and secondary education, which will address bullying and violence at school, including violence against women, an increasingly common problem in adolescence.
“We are convinced that the sooner training in the values of coexistence, tolerance, peaceful conflict resolution and gender equality is addressed, the more beneficial it will be for society,” said Alegría in his speech.
“Improving coexistence in our schools is an objective for all of us. Our schoolchildren, our boys and girls, our young people, need to go to class in a safe environment, where they feel confident to develop their full potential and, above all, where they are happy,” concluded the minister.