Senator Seeks Inclusion Of Mental Health In School Curriculum

Chairman of the Senate Committee connected Health, Dr. Ipalibo Harry Banigo, has called for the instauration of intelligence wellness successful the world curriculum, noting the beardown nexus betwixt intelligence health, subject and world productivity.

The senator, who is besides the expansive patron of Mandate Health Empowerment Initiative (MHEI) and the Association of Mental Health Reform Organisations successful Africa (AMHROA), made the telephone successful her keynote code astatine the commemoration of the World Mental Health Day 2025, organised by Mandate Health Empowerment Initiative (MHEI).

She said, “Education is much than the pursuit of grades; it is the shaping of character, values and vision. Yet, we cannot expect excellence from a caput burdened by anxiety, depression, fear, oregon hopelessness.

“Across Nigeria and overmuch of Africa, we look a increasing situation of world burnout, substance usage among youths, and rising affectional distress among some students and educators. Too often, these challenges are misunderstood, dismissed, oregon spiritualised, leaving galore to endure successful silence. We indispensable determination from soundlessness to enactment from stigma to support. The schoolhouse situation indispensable go a spot not lone for intelligence improvement but for intelligence information and affectional growth,” she said.

She besides called for the integration of intelligence wellness acquisition into schoolhouse curricula and the constitution of intelligence wellness desks successful schools nationwide.

“As Chairman of the Senate Committee connected Health, I reaffirm our committedness to a Nigeria wherever each learner tin thrive mentally and academically.

“We indispensable enactment intimately with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Health to integrate intelligence wellness acquisition into schoolhouse curricula, bid teachers and schoolhouse counselors successful affectional quality and situation response, found intelligence wellness desks successful each schools and tertiary institutions, empower parents done community-based intelligence wellness consciousness and enactment programs, put successful credible section probe and youth-centered information to thrust evidence-based decisions that fortify education, intelligence well-being, and nationalist development,” she explained.

MHEI led the commemoration of the World Mental Health Day with 2 flagship events focused connected bridging acquisition and intelligence wellness reforms: a National Students–Parents–Teachers Roundtable successful Abuja and a continental webinar hosted nether the Association of Mental Health Reform Organisations successful Africa (AMHROA).

The nationalist roundtable took spot astatine the Federal Ministry of Education Secretariat, bringing unneurotic implicit 120 participants including students from 5 secondary schools, parents, teachers, acquisition officials, and NGOs.

In his opening remarks, the laminitis and president of MHEI, Dr. Ameh Zion Abba, emphasised that intelligence well-being indispensable beryllium treated arsenic an acquisition priority, not simply a aesculapian issue.

“For acold excessively long, intelligence wellness has been confined to hospitals and institutions, seen arsenic an isolated aesculapian contented alternatively than a societal improvement priority.

“But today, we reaffirm a caller understanding, that intelligence well-being is the cardinal to world success, nationalist productivity, and thriving communities. When students larn successful psychologically harmless environments, erstwhile parents recognize affectional improvement arsenic overmuch arsenic world performance, erstwhile teachers are trained to support, not stigmatise, struggling learners, past acquisition becomes not lone a way to cognition but a travel toward wholeness, resilience, and purpose,” helium said.

The lawsuit featured interactive sessions wherever students, parents, and teachers shared idiosyncratic experiences and applicable solutions to amended affectional information wrong schools. MHEI besides launched a nationalist online survey to stitchery baseline information connected students’ intelligence wellness consciousness and coping strategies.

Participants besides recommended embedding intelligence wellness acquisition successful the nationalist curriculum, grooming teachers and counselors successful psychosocial support, and processing nationalist schoolhouse intelligence wellness guidelines.