The Psychological Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Credit: Molly Ferguson

The Covid - 19 Pandemic has had a far-reaching impact on all the stakeholders in the educational system (teachers, students and parents alike). The impact has been on the mental health of everyone involved in education! I have seen fathers weep tears of grief before me and mothers sharing their anxious thoughts with me regarding their inability to help their children with their homework and projects because of their inability to navigate through online LMS modules. The grief and anxiety of parents, expressed in words and tears is a dire call for help. Mental experts, councillors and life coaches need to address the mental issues faced by the shareholders of the educational systems all over the world. Unfortunately, all subject teachers can do is to listen to them with sympathy, though the solutions they can offer are very limited in nature as subject teachers are not trained to handle such issues.

Some of the issues faced by students and their parents alike are linked to the former being confined within the four walls of their homes due to extended lockdowns and concerns associated with the fear of contracting the disease. This enforced quarantine has affected young students' ability to connect with others, express their feelings with the result that they have retreated into a shell. This in itself has led to anxiety and stress. Another very issue is related to the trauma of losing family members to the disease. For young students who are at a vulnerable mental stage in life, it has been very difficult to cope with the tragedy of loss. The trauma of seeing dear ones fade away before their very eyes has become a painful experience that most students are struggling to emerge from.

It has been a painful experience for the parents too, who, because of the Covid-19 Pandemic have been working from home. They too had to undergo a difficult time balancing the stress of working from home, the uncertainty of holding on to their jobs, an uncertain future, the added responsibility of looking after their children who in better times would have been looked after by their teachers in school. The added stress of learning to work with online platforms on which homework, projects and learning materials are posted has confused well-meaning parents who previously took an active interest in their children's studies. A mother literally wept in front of me expressing confusion and helplessness in helping her younger daughter keep up with her studies. She had received an intimation from her daughter's teacher regarding her pending work!

Another parent told me how she and her husband had not earned a single cent since the Covid-19 Pandemic as they had been working in the travel industry that has suffered great losses with the drop in travel and tourism. It set me wondering about how their daughter was coping as she must surely be aware of the economic uncertainty her parents were going through. Job loss and lack of economic stability caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic have added to the mental stress faced by both parents and children alike. 

The shift to an online platform in school education has been a lifesaver but it has come with its own set of problems affecting the mental health of students parents and, even, teachers. The need to adapt to an entirely new (for many) system/platform has had its own issues. It has led to undue confusion and stress caused by the need to unlearn and relearn and modify neural networks in the brain. The virtual learning platform forced on us by the Covid-19 Pandemic has added to the psychological impact of living in unprecedented times. Noam Chomsky would be hard-pressed to explain how neural networks, hardwired for the learning of languages for ages would have to be modified in an instant!

Neural networks in human brains that have been wired taking into consideration centuries, if not, ages of learning, race memories, social, cultural and instincts to make us what we are, have been rudely jolted by this Pandemic. This emergent rewiring of neural networks in the brain has created more confusion and chaos than ever before. You just don't switch off, switch on, erase at will and then write at will unlearn and relearn things that have been etched in your brain from ancient times. The Covid-19 Pandemic will be seen as a significant blip in the story of Mankind. History has probably never seen an upheaval such as that caused by the Covid-19 Pandemic. Social conflict, war and even pandemics seen in the past have not had the kind of impact that the Covid-19 Pandemic has had on us. The greatest irony is that all our technological prowess and our knowledge of Science has not helped save us from the attack of a virus. We have won our battle against Polio, Small Pox, Plague, and Cholera,  but not against what is claimed to be a biological weapon against all mankind.

I understand and appreciate the efforts made by health experts to address concerns associated with the impact of a pandemic of epic proportions but, unfortunately, not much has really been done in this regard. The fact of the matter is that we are not mentally prepared to address the problems associated with the impact of a pandemic of such proportions. The Covid-19 Pandemic has exposed the need to work on our mental health preparedness both at the school level, family level and individual level. The Covid-19 Pandemic will go down in history as an event that has exposed the ineffectuality of science and technology in combating the impact of a virus attack on humanity at large.

We are, unfortunately, today befuddled and confused by the impact of a global pandemic. Our technological prowess in space sciences, medical sciences, psychology, warfare, and any other field has exposed our lack of preparedness in tackling a global pandemic caused by something as small as a virus. This knowledge in the inefficacy of science in tackling and defeating a virus has had a mental and psychological impact on all of us. The knowledge that we are, after all, not in control of our viruses and pandemics has led to a feeling of deja vu, a feeling of disenchantment and helplessness in a world that is supposedly moving towards advancement never before seen in the history of mankind.