Stress is caused by being ‘here’ but wanting to be ‘there’ – Eckhart Tolle
The Covid-19 pandemic has created many challenges for everyone in the world irrespective of cast, class, creed or religion. There is no way to even imagine the stress levels of people who lost their loved ones due to the virus or have their loved ones fighting for their lives.
Simply seeing and hearing what is happening around the world and in one’s own neighbourhood is more than enough to raise one’s anxiety level anyway. With the importance given to formal education as the most important aspect of a child’s life, children, parents, teachers, educators and decision makers and policy makers in the education sector are facing an enormous challenge in minimising the delays in the process.
Formal education is the key ingredient in generating the ‘human capital’ which has become the most valuable factor of production in the economies around the world. There has never been a time where the effect of literacy and numeracy levels of the citizens on the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of a country is stronger than what it is today. On top of that, the countries around the world were struggling to make the transition from industrial to knowledge economies where the economic growth is mainly based on expansion of knowledge resulting in new technologies and innovations.
One particular segment of the economy enjoying the benefits of ‘new normal’ of course is the business of education. Institutions of higher education worldwide are undergoing unprecedented change switching over to online teaching and learning due to constraints brought in by the pandemic.
Many were not really prepared for this move but had to jump right in and try what is now being described by some as ‘emergency remote teaching and learning (ERTL)’. It is a little more than a year since many countries experienced their first lockdown due to Covid-19. Some universities are trying out different forms of hybrid teaching and learning where face-to-face and online instruction methods are combined into a single experience. Most of the countries are trying these methods out with K-12 formal education too.
Let alone the school teachers, most of the university lecturers have not had any experience or training in online teaching and evaluation. In countries like Sri Lanka where the traditional sequence of examinations from Grade five scholarship, GCE O/L to GCE A/L and the university entrance is the main focus of the formal education, this transition has created a lot of anxiety and stress in students and teachers as well as parents.
We have not made any changes in our curriculum or in the methods of evaluation at all. But the mode of delivery has changed completely. Private tutoring is booming much faster since the teacher now doesn’t have to travel to different locations, or rent buildings to house the students, or pay for public address systems and print material.
State schools in the same game
The only cost is for the access to a reliable platform to deliver the lesson and for data use during the duration of the class. But the students have to pay the same fee as before and they have to use their own data to access the class. So the profit margin for the tuition master is even higher. Most of the State schools are also doing this online game because if they don’t their students will fall behind not to mention the obligation to follow Government circulars. Even though mobile data providers agreed to let the students use data free at the beginning now they are also benefitting from this increased usage of mobile data in the education sector.
There are many households in Sri Lanka where the occupants do not have access to a laptop or a smartphone. Even if they managed to get a phone, if they have more than one child of school and university age then one will have to stay out of the class while the other is using it.
There are also a large number of people living in the areas where there is no clear mobile signal to receive video signals or the other material they are supposed to have downloaded in order to complete their assignments and examinations.
Instead of spending money to improve the infrastructure of distributing data, the service providers here have this system of charging different amounts during so called peak hours and non-peak hours making the young generation of the nation nocturnal. Students and their parents have no choice since the mobile data market in Sri Lanka basically is a monopoly and we seem to like it that way. The school time now is not from 7.30 a.m. to 1.30 p.m. Monday through Friday. The game is on 24/7. Sleep deprivation is one of factors contributing to stress and mood disorders such as anxiety and depression. Not being able to meet their friends, being isolated, not being able to participate in sports and other social activities all add to children’s anxieties and stress. Even the parents are not concerned about these issues because they think that if their children didn’t keep up with the rest they will be failures in the future.
Even during the regular school days the teachers are known to overload the students with homework and assignments.
If children say that they have a lot of homework from other subjects and request the next teacher not to give any, the usual response of the teacher is: “Well, that is not my problem, if you want to pass this subject you better do this work and if you don’t complete it by the deadline you will be punished.
Inconvenient
Why don’t you ask your other teachers not to give any homework? Don’t you know that this subject is more important?” Most of the teachers have no idea about the impact of their words and action on the mental well-being of the students. Children already dealing with physical or mental health problems, family and financial problems have been victimised by these changes and expectations of the ‘new normal’ to the extent where some have even contemplated suicide. We do all these things in the name of doing the best for the children and helping them to be in the race without falling behind and hopefully win the race.
The only problem is that the race we are preparing them to win may not be the race that the children would like to be in. Perhaps they do not want to compete at all. Maybe they simply like to do what they want to do at their own pace. That perhaps is why Mahatma Gandhi once said: “There is more to life than increasing its speed.”
After torturing children from the age of two till they are twenty in this way, if anyone expects them to be kind and compassionate towards fellow human beings in their adult life then, such an expectation certainly fits Einstein’s definition of insanity.
The writer has served in the higher education sector as an academic for over twenty years in the USA and fourteen years in Sri Lanka.