A research fellow at the Institute for Educational Planning and Administration (IEPA) at the University of Cape Coast, Dr Michael Boakye Yiadom has described the incessant use of fear-induced language to describe the Covid 19 pandemic as detrimental to the psychological wellbeing of students who are yet to sit for their final examination.
Dr Boakye Yiadom indicated that it is important for both the media and the general public to be mindful of the way they report on the virus. According him whiles there is the need to educate the public on the dangers associated with contracting the virus, It is also important to ensure that any form of language that has the potency to encourage fear is abhorred.
Dr. Mike Boakye Yiadom’s comment comes at the back of a press statement issued by some teacher unions on Wednesday describing the current situation of the virus in senior high schools as grim and deadly.
Read this too: NUGS calls on Government to assign Psychologists to final year students
The Unions explained the bad situation has also been multifaceted by the Electoral Commission visiting campuses to register students thereby breaching the COVID-19 protocols the more.
“The situation is really grim and deadly! And this is what the country finds itself in at the moment! This notwithstanding, the Electoral Commission has intruded into the schools, allegedly to register the students for the 2020 general election, thus breaching the protocols the more, and making more infestations open.”
The release added “Our children are the prey, the target. Our children are on the receiving end, while such critical bodies as the Ministry of Finance, the Bulk Oil Storage and Transportation Company Ltd (BOST) the Ghana Grid Company Ltd (GridCo) and the Ghana Cocoa Board (COCOBOD) among others, are either on partial or total lockdown”.
But speaking on the ATLANTIC WAVE on ATL FM, Dr Boakye Yiadom said such statements are unnecessary except to create needless panic and fear among students.
“We know that we do not have enough counsellors and psychologists in the schools to prepare these students mentally to manage what we are putting out there that definitely affects their emotions,” he said.
Dr Mike Boakye Yiadom also stated that the incessant call for schools to close down should be channelled towards intensified education on Covid19 preventive protocols among students.
According to him, it is the wearing of nose masks while observing all the health protocols that will prevent the spread of the disease and not the closure of schools.
In this regard, he proposed that house masters and mistresses should be relieved off some teaching duties in order to give attention to educating students on the preventive protocols.
Meanwhile, Dr. Elizabeth Agyare who is an Infectious Disease Specialist and head of the rapid response team at the Cape Coast Teaching Hospital who joined the discussion said there is no cause for alarm even though some schools have recorded some cases. According to her, closing down schools due to the few community infections that have crept into the schools will not be fair to the entire students’ population.
She is rather calling for an “all round approach in dealing with the situation whether schools are closed or not”.
Source: Lydia Sekyi-Acquah & Aba Aikins Appah/ATLFMNEWS
