Level of Anxiety in Students and Education System Due to COVID 19 - Essay Sample

Introduction

Background

Education is the primary driver towards the attainment of socio-economical desires and elements in every society due to its ability to instill positive dynamism among the scholars and the entire society. It is an inalienable basic human right as well as a universal social element use to enhance change and development. As a result of the negative repercussions experienced from World War II, many governments have prompt various strategic measures of expanding and diversification the education sector through prioritization and allocation of adequate resources towards its expansion. The war enabled many governments to understand that the investment in the education and health care sectors had positive impacts towards economic developments in society through the improvement of the living standards of the citizens.

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The education systems are the essential elements that enable the people to explicitly explore their potentials and exercise other basic human rights, duties, and responsibilities. Therefore, when there is an interruption in the education sector, it results in massive dropouts and delays syllabus coverage, which has adverse social and economic implications on all the stakeholders in the sector (Nicomedes & Avila, 2020). It culminates in negative impacts on the learners, schools, families, and even the communities and hence potential loss of moral values in the society. Without proper strategies and mitigation measures to counter the spread of the pandemic (Covid-19) majority of the governments' Ministries of Educations will be overwhelmed and will result in the failure to develop amicable ways of addressing the issue. The situations may result in catastrophic implications in the learning institutions of all levels ranging from the basic primary schools to the tertiary institutions and hence resulting in long term negative effects.

Educational planning should encompass the occurrence of all the natural disasters like the Coronavirus pandemic that has hit almost all the countries globally and has paralyzed various operations, including the education process due to imposed lockdown and closure of such institutions (Nemati et al., 2020). They rely entirely upon the demographic models by various countries in making the required projections on the tutors' necessities, and the student enrollments in schools may not give the most appropriate results as there are other uncertain factors that affect the demand and supply in the education systems.

Some of such factors include natural hazards like the coronavirus and the man-made phenomena that results in widespread anxiety and psychological disturbances among the students. "The lack of hard evidence about what is actually happening in schools could result in broad generalizations about the impacts of the global pandemic on the education sector, which, although largely unsubstantiated, have already been widely accepted as received wisdom" (Kekic & Miladinovic, 2013). Therefore, unforeseen calamities like the Covid-19 affect the education system adversely and culminate in widespread hick-ups in the education sector with the students being on the receiving end.

The pandemic has affected all the people either directly or indirectly because it is classified as highly contagious, the directly affected victims get isolated for a specified period of time because they have the potential of passing the virus to others. It has resulted in various isolations and subsequent closures of various institutions in the bid to tame the disease by flattening the spreading curve (Qiu et al., 2020). When the victims of coronavirus have fully recovered from the disease, they can no longer spread the infection hence allowed to interact with other members of the public. However, asymptomatic victims of the disease have the potential of spreading the virus even without showing the signs of disease in their body systems hence becoming the riskiest populations in the fight against the coronavirus.

Since the disease does not discriminate, students, education staff, and even the subordinate staff in the education sector are the potential victims of the infection. "Often, school personnel and parents have questions regarding the risks of exposure to the coronavirus disease within the school setting and the appropriate management of students with chronic infectious diseases" (Kekic & Miladinovic, 2013, par. 8). It, therefore, implies that the situations and measures within the education sector of fighting the spread of the pandemic affect the education process negatively as the closure of such facilities may prompt them to embrace the digital and online learning which may not be as effective as the physical learning process and hence lead to the development of anxiety conditions among the students (Nemati, Ebrahimi, & Nemati, 2020).

It is important for the learning institutions to develop standard operations procedures and risk resolution strategies that will help them fight the occurrence of any unforeseen situations and hence cushioning the students against the negative implications caused by such incidences (Ornell et al., 2020). They include the establishment of psychological counseling and guidance avenues that enables them to filter the harsh facts about the conditions at hand before getting down to the students (Nicomedes & Avila, 2020). Moreover, emergency preparations and safety procedures for a wide range of diseases that ranges from contagious to noncontagious need to prepare so that they can psychologically prepare the students and other education stakeholders in the event that such situations occur. In this case, the majority of the students have developed anxiety and psychological complications as a result of the Covid 19 pandemic that has destabilized the learning process and the instilled worries of contracting the infection (Qiu et al., 2020).

The closure of schools is a clear indication that most of the Ministries of Education and governments had not initially prepared for the occurrence of the pandemic of any type (Ornell et al., 2020). Coronavirus has come as an awakening call for the governments to strengthen its systems through the adoption of the appropriate disease and illness control strategies that helps in reducing the impacts of such diseases in the sector. "School safety and educational continuity require a dynamic, continuous process initiated by management and involving workers, students, parents, and if it is possible - the local community" (Kekic & Miladinovic, 2013).

There is a rising case of mental problems that correlate with the current Covid 19 pandemic among the students. The upsurge in anxiety mental health problems among the students is a public issue that requires prompt intervention and prompt solutions (Ornell et al., 2020). Anxiety is a mental health complication that results in a collection of other mental disorders that include psychotic disorders, mood disorders, personality disorders, substance abuse disorders, and eating disorders (Nicomedes & Avila, 2020).

However, the most prevalent mental health problems among the students currently is anxiety due to the rising cases of coronavirus that have led to compromised education systems (Kekic & Miladinovic, 2013). The upsurge in such a mental disorder has become a public health issue that manifests itself in disastrous outcomes such a suicide among the affected directly or indirectly affected students. While there has been an increase in mental health cases among the students initially prior to the pandemic, the health sector is yet to underpin the primary determinants of the mental health problem upsurge.

The education sector has become the recent victim of a natural calamity that has led to the closure of learning facilities and the subsequent mental suffering of the learners. The mental health problem has resulted in a three-fold effect in various societies, and it would exacerbate unless corrective interventions target the determinants of psychiatric mental health issues. Firstly, the problem is noticeable among the students from primary to university, which can escalate to older people in there in society if the pandemic persists. Secondly, the problem has been periodic, which has correlated to an equal upsurge in students' suicide cases (Wong et al., 2020).

Lastly, the problem continues to burden the parents with stress related to the management of the youth because of the lack of knowledge regarding the determinants of the upsurge in the mental health case (anxiety) in most of the countries globally (Qiu et al., 2020). Most of the students are currently facing face many personal, social, and environmental stressors, including insomnia and long idle hours away from school, which have the potential to contribute to ill-mental health. Consequently, the continued upsurge in the level of anxiety and other mental health problems has implications such as placement of the affected youth at the risk of attempted suicide at best, or suicide at worst.

To investigate the implication of the pandemic (Covid19) in the education sector and the upsurge levels of anxiety among the students, it is necessary to focus the research effort on both socio-economic, socio-political, and sociocultural aspects of a typical university student. This approach has been used many studies to investigate mental health problems among the affected students in many countries (Yang et al., 2020). Nevertheless, this approach widens the investigation scope of the research, which might impede the ability to pinpoint other issues that cause mental illnesses among the students. Therefore, this research study focuses on the implications caused by Covid-19, which is a global pandemic that has interrupted the education process and caused anxiety among the students and other stakeholders.

The Research Objectives

• To check how is the education systems affected by the coronavirus (Covid 19) pandemic, and what measures have been established to solve the global issue?
• To determine how are the students coping during Covid 19 correlation with the level of anxiety?
• Why are the determinants of up-surging anxiety and other mental health problems prevalent among the affected students?

Hypothesis

The novel pandemic (Covid19) has adversely affected the education systems and led to surging cases of anxiety and other mental complications among the students.

Research Question

What is the level of anxiety surge among the students as a result of Covid-19 that has affected the education sector globally?

Literature Review

Pandemics of the acute contagious situation have adverse implications on the normal lives and general well-being of people from the social unit of a family to institutions with large demographic populations. When the people contract the disease, they fall sick and, therefore, cannot work due to their health status resulting in loss or reduced incomes and property due to treatment purposes. It, therefore, triggers psychological conditions (anxiety) that further affect their entire health. "People leastways die; specialized w...