Mental Health Differences among Pre-service Teachers: A Demographic Analysis

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DOI: https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23946213

Brijesh Kumar Singh and Pushpa Devi (School of Education, Central University of Gujarat, Gujarat)

‘Mental Health’ is an important aspect of teacher training programmes as it influences the learning behaviour of future teachers, including effective lesson planning, classroom management, pedagogical approaches, teaching skills, and assessment techniques. Demographic variables’ effects are observed differently on the mental health of individuals, and in the context of pre-service teachers, this issue is still underexplored. Therefore, the study aimed to examine whether there exist any differences in mental health among pre-service teachers enrolled in the two-year teacher education programme with respect to gender, locality, marital status and academic stream. A quantitative research approach was adopted, and a representative sample of 271 pre-service teachers from Varanasi district, Uttar Pradesh was selected through stratified random sampling. Mental health was assessed using the standardized Mental Health Checklist developed by Kumar (1992). The findings revealed that male pre-service teachers demonstrated significantly better mental health than their female counterparts, whereas no substantial difference was observed based on locality, marital status and academic streams. Based on these findings, it is recommended that teacher training institutions should develop holistic programs for mental health promotion that apply equally to all students irrespective of their demographics. Counselling services, stress management workshops, life-skills training, and a supportive academic environment should be made equally available to all pre-service teachers.