Explained: What Tele-MANAS offers students and why CBSE wants schools to act now

CBSE promotes Tele-MANAS for pupil psychological well being help in all schools. (AI Image)

The Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has directed all its affiliated schools to actively implement and promote the National Tele Mental Health Programme (Tele-MANAS) inside college campuses. This transfer is geared toward guaranteeing that students throughout CBSE schools have round the clock entry to skilled, free, and confidential psychological well being providers.In a latest round, CBSE emphasised the necessity for large dissemination of Tele-MANAS sources amongst students, workers, and mother and father. Schools have been instructed to prominently show helpline numbers and digital referral choices in ceaselessly accessed areas of the campus to normalise psychological well being help-seeking behaviour.Tele-MANAS offers round the clock help in 20 languagesTele-MANAS is a 24×7 nationwide psychological well being helpline launched on October 10, 2022, providing help by means of skilled psychological well being professionals. The service is presently obtainable in 20 languages and operates by means of 53 devoted cells throughout India. Since its launch, the programme has acquired and dealt with over 23 lakh calls.Read Also: CBSE pronounces main reforms for LOC submission forward of Class 10 and 12 board exams 2026To improve accessibility, Tele-MANAS has just lately launched a video session platform, permitting students to search non-public, real-time interactions with psychological well being consultants. Additionally, a cell software is obtainable in each Hindi and English, with extra regional languages deliberate for future updates.CBSE instructs schools to show helpline dataCBSE has mandated the show of the Tele-MANAS helpline numbers — 14416 and 1800-891-4416 — together with a QR code for the app at areas ceaselessly visited by students. These embrace noticeboards, lecture rooms, college lobbies, and counselling rooms.Furthermore, schools have been requested to embrace details about Tele-MANAS in pupil handbooks, newsletters, bulletins throughout college assemblies, and parent-teacher conferences. This initiative is a part of CBSE’s broader goal to make psychological well being help extra seen, stigma-free, and youth-friendly.Schools to promote early identification and peer-led initiativesThe CBSE round encourages schools to undertake age-appropriate and peer-led well being promotion actions underneath present programmes comparable to Samagra Shiksha and PM SHRI Schools. These initiatives are designed to promote early identification of psychological well being considerations, foster an empathetic response, and make sure that students have clear and accessible pathways to care.Involving students in peer engagement actions is seen as a technique to reinforce resilience, improve peer help, and facilitate open discussions round psychological well being matters in secure, school-based environments.Meanwhile, CBSE and AIIMS Delhi start Project MATE coachingMeanwhile, CBSE, in collaboration with the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, has launched the Project MATE (Mind Activation Through Education) coaching programme for college counsellors and wellness academics. The coaching started on August 26, 2025, and is being held at AIIMS Delhi with roughly 50 individuals from CBSE schools throughout the Delhi-NCR area.Project MATE is an adolescent wellness programme developed at AIIMS. It goals to improve resilience, enhance coping mechanisms, and promote significant peer connectivity by means of the idea of “MATE-5.” The five-day coaching is carried out by consultants in psychiatry, psychology, and communication.Sessions cowl the biopsychosocial mannequin of well being, nervousness administration, vitamin, social roles, digital well-being, and the event of optimistic help methods. Outcomes from this pilot initiative will likely be monitored and refined for future nationwide rollout to strengthen the college counselling ecosystem.Through the Tele-MANAS helpline and Project MATE, CBSE continues its efforts to combine psychological well being help throughout the college schooling framework.TOI Education is on WhatsApp now. Follow us right here.