Health Issues in the Education Sector
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Introduction
Health in schools has proven to be futile in the recent past. The wellness of students and teachers in school has been a worrying trend. This problem has put educators under a tight schedule to reform the education health system. Center of disease and control says that children in the k-12 system are prone to diseases than those in high school. The health crisis in this stage of learning has put learning at stake. Children under the age of 12 suffer the most during their school life. This has been attributed to concussions. Also, teachers suffer health problems too. The biggest problem today is the covid19 pandemic.
First and foremost, covid19 pandemic has halted education across the world. According to NCES (2019), an estimated 1.4 billion students worldwide have been forced to stay home. Out of this huge number, 55 million American children have joined a long list of students who are missing an important chapter in their education life. The pandemic raged havoc at the beginning of spring, leaving the schools with no choice but to close down. Students missed classes, games, and other co-curricular activities. The public education system has been hit hard because of the economic crisis caused by the pandemic. The teachers were not prepared for this event. The stringent measures were not necessitated at the beginning of the pandemic(Gonzalez et al., 2020). Although many students may be at home, there is irrational support for others because they can access homeschooling while those who depend on public institutions continue to suffer.
Secondly, the learning time in school has been interrupted by the pandemic. It has been estimated that students lose valuable time during the pandemic. Research by Programme for international student assessment(PISA) in 2010 suggests that students should be able to do well in school when their academic performance reaches between 0.5 and 0.7 standard deviations (Emma & Elaine, 2020). This is contrary to what they did this year. It was found out that only 0.1 standard deviation performance was depicted from kindergarten pupils. This shows that the school’s learning time was reduced, and students were not in the system for learning. This indicates that the syllabus coverage for students only took place hallway for a single year.
Moreover, child performance in school does not always imply reading and answering questions. Children need to grow psychologically. During the pandemic, children have no time to play. They need to maintain social distance. The milestones of child development are infringed. Children are having a lot of stress due to COvid19 control measures(Sintema, 2020). This process affects the education sector because a good education system should have provisions for a child’s brain development. It would be a bad idea to raise a generation of people who have less social interaction. Inactive children tend to perform dismally compared to their active counterparts. The district performance index is going down because of this pandemic.
The government plans to reopen schools amid the second wave of covid 19. This is critical because schools don’t have enough resources to battle the virus. It would be hard to control crowded students. Most public schools have two to three nurses or medical practitioners. This situation cannot be the real deal while fighting the pandemic. A single case in school can create a health crisis because there are no enough ventilators to save thousands of crowded students. Also, isolation rooms in schools won’t be enough to manage the situation. The ambulances to cater for emergencies in school are not enough. The education sector didn’t budget for such resources and would require deep consultation from the health ministry to reimburse funds.
As much as students are getting affected by the pandemic, teachers are on the other end struggling with economic hardship. Many teachers in private schools lost jobs. The salaries are usually guaranteed from fee payment. Due to schools’ closure, institutions had limited options to save their staff from the financial crisis. Most of them got impromptu leave letters. Others got salary deductions depending on their financial capabilities to sustain the workforce during the non-operational period. The education sector in a public institution is suffering losses since the teachers have to be paid even when they do not report for a job. The government is in a dilemma on the continuous expenditure for closed schools.
There has been a control measure by institutions to initiate online learning. This idea works for higher learning and some high school students. The elementary schools have no enough resources to roll out the program. Not all teachers are literate in using computers. It poses a challenge to those who valued their career while in class, but it becomes a burden when they are told to use zoom and other modern online streaming platforms(Putri et al., 2020). Also, students in the lower education level may not go well with e-learning. Some subjects like sciences in highs school need practices which can only be done at school. Parents rely on homeschooling. This process is expensive, and the rich students can only benefit from this scheme. Poor students have no tutors’ access because their parents cannot afford the expenses associated with this process. This idea leaves an imbalanced education set up between those who have an economic advantage over the others.
The health crisis needs to be resolved as fast as possible. First of all, education stakeholders need to come together and bring experts on board. It is an unexpected pandemic that crossed the limits. They need to decide on reopening and structuring the appropriate plans for training and sensitization against the COvid19 pandemic. The education sector needs to allocate more funds to procure PPEs and masks for schools(Yanez et al., 2020). Also, there should be a plan to increase health practitioners and nurses in schools. School management needs to discuss salaries and negotiate with the government for a supplement of funds as a stimulus during this hard times.
Conclusion
In conclusion, the health and well-being of schools have been a mess. The covid19 and other health issues have stalled the education system. Students have been staying home while learning is grounded. Also, teachers have been affected despite their salary remissions. Most of them are new to technological advancements in education and therefore find it hard to teach online. The government’s responsibility is to reform the education system by training teachers, funding, and strategizing on possible ways of combating covid19.
References
Emma García, & Elaine Weiss. (2020, September 10). COVID-19 and student performance, equity, and U.S. education policy: Lessons from pre-pandemic research to inform relief, recovery, and rebuilding. Economic Policy Institute. https://www.epi.org/publication/the-consequences-of-the-covid-19-pandemic-for-education-performance-and-equity-in-the-united-states-what-can-we-learn-from-pre-pandemic-research-to-inform-relief-recovery-and-rebuilding/
Gonzalez, T., de la Rubia, M. A., Hincz, K. P., Comas-Lopez, M., Subirats, L., Fort, S., & Sacha, G. M. (2020). Influence of COVID-19 confinement on students’ performance in higher education. PloS one, 15(10), e0239490.
Putri, R. S., Purwanto, A., Pramono, R., Asbari, M., Wijayanti, L. M., & Hyun, C. C. (2020). Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on online home learning: An explorative study of primary schools in Indonesia. International Journal of Advanced Science and Technology, 4809-4818.
Yanez, C., Seldin, M., & Mann, R. (2020). Public School Principals’ Top Three Most Important Education Goals, by Charter Status and School Level. Data Point. NCES 2020-201. National Center for Education Statistics.
Sintema, E. J. (2020). Effect of COVID-19 on the performance of grade 12 students: Implications for STEM education. Eurasia Journal of Mathematics, Science and Technology Education, 16(7), em1851.