Workshop for Tibetan Schools’ Teacher Counselors Gets Underway[Tuesday, 17 August 2010, 2:48 p.m.]

Ven Karma G Youthok(L), Secretary, and Ms Donkar Wangmo (R), Chief Counselor of  Department of Education talks to the counselers from various Tibetan schools participating in the workshop on Monday,16 August 2010. Photo/ Department of Education.

Dharamshala:
The Department of Education of the Central Tibetan Administration is
conducting a workshop for teacher counselors beginning from 16 August
at the College for Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarah near Dharamsala. It
will last for five days until 20 August 2010. Twenty-five
teachers are participating in the workshop where 14 are from schools
under Central Tibetan Schools Administration, 7 are from Sambhota
Tibetan Schools Society, 3 from Tibetan schools in Nepal and one from
College for Higher Tibetan Studies, Sarah.Ms Donkar Wangmo,
Chief Counselor, Department of Education welcomed the participants. In
her speech, she highlighted the need and the importance of the
workshop. She emphasised that the topics which would be covered during
this workshop is very much the issues that the teachers and parents are
concerned of in the community. After the self-introduction of
the participants, Chief Guest Ven. Karma G Yuthok, Secretary of
Department of Education, spoke on the importance of traditional
multi-task role of teachers in taking care of the overall development
of the students instead of limiting the teacher’s job to teach a
particular subject. He further elaborated on the effectiveness of the
counseling programme if both traditional and western philosophy are
incorporated together for practice. Ven Karma G Yuthok made
very clear to the participants that the Department of Education will
have a chief counselor at the head office and three resident counselors
located in North, East and South India, as well as one in Nepal. As
these professionals would not be enough to cater to all the students,
so he strongly called upon the school heads to recruit professional
counselors by the schools themselves since the need and importance of
counseling for students was strongly expressed and agreed upon during
the opening conference.Resource persons, Dr (Ms) Gayitri Bhatt
and Ms Maitri Gopalakrishna of Parivarthan Center for Counseling,
Training and Research Center, Bangalore will cover the first three days
of the workshop with topics such as counseling skills, child
developmental stages, understanding how to relate with adolescents,
substance use and abuse.Ms Sonam Dechen, Associate Director,
Tibetan Center for Conflict Resolution, will talk on ‘Conflicts in
schools and intervention’ while Ms. Donkar Wangmo, Chief Counselor,
Department of Education will take two sessions on ‘Bullying in schools:
types and intervention, and understanding child sexual abuse’. Finally,
Ms. Sonam Pelmo, Volunteer Counselor, Department of Education will
touch on ‘Learning disabilities: types and symptoms’.Methods
employed in the workshop are practical discussion, interactive,
lecture, power-point presentation, group work, role play etc.-Report filed by Tsering Phuntsok, Education officer, Department of Education.