Educational lockdown : Psychological, moral and emotional repercussions.

Sadaket Ali Malik

Education isn't meant to grasp the prescribed curriculum within a stipulated time frame. There has been a common consensus among the policy makers, educationists, psychologists, extended teaching fraternity, Counsellors, parents, regarding the impact on COVID 19 on the mental health, psycho social and moral aspect of their life. The thrust on the audio vedeo lecturing has not only bored them but may prove very dangerous if the academic component is not mixed with the other activities, or if the pragmatic approach is not initiated to  guage the psycho social, moral and emotional sanctity in order to ensure adjustment. The constant pressure from parents and grasping of the content of a long u vedeos of their syllabi need a mixture of other fun field activities to ensure stress management. 

Keeping this in view the policy makers and psychologists viz a viz counsellors has to play a very sensitive role to reach out the children and   guage their psychological aspect of life. It don't mean defying the existing academic part of the prescribed by the competent authority.

Very recently, Ahead of coronavirus lockdown 5.0, Directorate of Education, Jammu, has introduced mental health plans in schools. The school education department headed by Director school education jammu has taken a grand initiatives to meet these challenges. Directorate has formed a task force consisting of over 100 psychologists/teachers who will soon organise online counselling sessions for the school students to address their mental health issues. task force of 100 well-qualified teachers will also guide the students about the precautions that need to be taken to maintain their mental health. 

The department has already existing Tele counselling Helpline under the scheme of " Aao Baat Karain" and under the manifold of it there is a network of Counselling Cells at school level to reach the students at local level. The Tele counselling helpline has been playing a key role with well knitted clinical psychologists and counsellors to take care of the psycho social emotional moral health needs of the children. The initiative of the already existing tele counselling helpline has been reoriented immediately by the department after lockdown. In such a situation calamity the children are not prone to the existing interactive classroom that has a possiblity of emotional stress. There other reasons like unrealistic expectations from the parents has also been a point of debate among the strong academic community of the state. Keeping these factors in view the department has initiated a path breaking initiatives for keeping the psycho social moral emotional and mental health needs of the children intact. 

The schools in jammu region has been constantly working from home with with support of dedicated teachers who not only provided access to the children at their homes but also imbibed and encouraged them to participate in filed fun activities to overcome their psychological stress. The department initiated home classes on 27 march 2020 and the efforts were made to provide first three chapters of their syllabus through delivery. The competent authority also   empenelled a team of 400 resource teachers to upload the lectures on website of the department. The daunting task was to cover the unreached students who were devoid of the android phones and other gadgets. The teachers were asked to make a phone contacts with the students to overcome their academic issues. 

In order to provide access to the uncovered students who belong to the most deprived sections who haven't access to smart phone has been given an alternative with the help of Doordarshan and other private Cable and digital channels to reach out the student force. 

 Radio as a medium of instruction, worksheets etc and other ways were devised by the people to provide access to learning. The home assignment initiative has been initiated to check the progress and keep the students  enganged in learning process. 

 .  .  . Now owing to the consistent lockdown there has been a multi pronged strategy to check the stress, anxiety and other psychological and social issues of the children. The team of Psychologists empanelled by the school education department will cover the following components: 

Orientation Programme: An orientation programme will be organised from June 1 to 3 for the psychological task force members in order to train them about the counselling skills.

Online counselling sessions : After orientation online counselling sessions will be organised for the students across Jammu region, both private and government school students will be covered under this programme. 

The objective of constituting the task force was to help the students overcome stress, anxiety and other mental health issues. 

There is therefore a dire need of looking the issue from the parental side too, the unrealistic expectations by the parents and constant pressure on the students may lead to anxiety, stress and other issues. Since we need to collaborate and counsel the children in psychological aspect as well in order to ensure happiness of them. 

The author is a Teaching in School Education Department Jammu