Blog

The COVID-19 pandemic has profound effects on the health, safety, education and wellbeing of learners and teachers, economic dislocation of breadwinners of the family and reduced source of income and uncertainty what will happen to their future life.

Education is the hardly hit sector by this COVID-19 pandemic, where prolonged school closures had brought the learners stress, anxiety and depression exacerbated by the home quarantine, thus, limiting their mobility within the home setting with no defined activity to work on. Levels of family stress increase where girls and women, in particular, endure the multiple burdens as they deal with unpaid domestic work, bigger care-giving responsibilities, and risk of domestic violence and child abuse. There is also a need to determine the impact of technology and the potential hazards to children’s health and safety and risks faced by girls dropping out from school by spending more in online and its consequent vulnerability to abuse, sexual exploitation and cyber-bullying.

The shift from face-to-face interactive learning to homeschooling and other learning modalities in almost all of the areas may further aggravate the anxieties and worrisome of many learners due to the adaptation to the new learning environment, perceived problems on reading readiness and reading comprehension, lack of access to technology, gadgets and internet required in blended learning, uneven source or lack of electricity especially in the geographically isolated or remote areas and most of all, the feeling of uncertainties about their future. Even parents and teachers are also in distress and undergoing feeling of insecurities in imagining their life in the new normal because it is not only schools are affected but also the loss of employment of the breadwinners in their family.

It is in this light, that the TEACHERS Inc. in partnership with E-Net Philippines launched the Thursday Webinar Series. This is the second in the Thursday Webinar series that deals on “Psycho-social Management of Stress, Anxieties and Depression among Learners, Teachers and Parents amid COVID Pandemic and Beyond.”

Objectives of the Webinar Series:

• Illustrate/Present the psychosocial situation of learners, teachers and parents amid COVID-19 pandemic;
• Discuss how to manage psychosocial issues of stress, anxieties and depression experienced by our learners, teachers and parents; and
• Come up with programs that will strengthen the psychosocial support to the health and wellbeing of the learners, teachers as well as parents during the time of the pandemic and beyond.