Concerned over the ineffectiveness of the ongoing awareness programmes on preventing sexual assaults on students and drug abuse in educational institutions, Dakshina Kannada district administration is moving a step further to have a system of mentors in institutions to help students to confide in.

Chairing a meeting of representatives of college managements and health professionals on women safety in the light of recent incidents of rape involving some students, Deputy Commissioner Sasikanth Senthil S. said on Monday that the system of mentoring is prevalent in every advanced educational institution and the best practices available needed to be adopted in the district.

“The present generation of students are fast and we have not been able to catch up with them. Despite awareness programmes, sexual assaults continue to be reported. There seems to be a communication problem that is resulting in such incidents. We need to step up, open our minds and understand students,” he said.

Mr. Senthil said that with mentors in place students will have a forum where they can openly express their thoughts. Personalised mentoring, he said, was a long-felt need and it will go a long way in addressing the issue of safety of students in an educational institution. “If we do not have this system, then students will continue to suffer with those dark periods, which is not good. Maintain positive attitude towards students and help them in becoming good citizens,” he said.

The modalities of personalised mentoring system, he said, will shortly be announced. “We will set minimum standards and have a team to check it on a regular basis. We will take views from students about the working of the mentoring system,” he said and added that the district administration will arrange training for mentors. When a representative from Badriya College expressed the need for a helpline for women to complain on incidents of harassment, Mr. Senthil said that the district helpline 1077 will be revamped shortly to handle all complaints. “We will have trained personnel to handle queries related to women, calls seeking counselling to prevent suicide and also those related to disasters,” he said.

Earlier, principal of P. Dayanada Pai-P. Satish Pai Government First Grade College, Car Street, Rajashekar Hebbar, pointed to the sale of narcotic drugs, harassment of girls and circulation of sexual assault videos in trains by which students from neighbouring Kerala come to the city for study. A lecturer in psychology from St. Agnes College said that counsellors in educational institutions were largely unsuccessful as this task was in addition to holding classes.