Assessing the impact of COVID-19 on the mental health of University Students
Last Updated on June 7, 2021 by Administrator
While the growing Covid 19 Pandemic is creating an undeniable impact on the lives of the students, the most aggravating impact it seems to have is the psychological one.
The last survey to assess the impact of the pandemic revealed that out of the total university students 53.1%,37.2% and 24.3% had symptoms of depression, anxiety and stress respectively, with varying severities.
Apart from external stressors like the lockdowns, some source of stress has been rigidity in the adopted schedule of the universities which prevent them from moulding themselves to the need of the hour. Like the universities have ignored various mails pleading for the cancellation or postponement of examinations.
Recent incidents, such as the one at a top National University where the demise of one of the students resulted in a grief ceremony of nearly 1.5 minutes have resulted in a wide uproar from law students across the NLUs.
One such incident was at the Indian Institute of technology Bombay, where a teacher replied to the student asking for a few days off classes to mourn the death of his grandfather in negative, saying that since he can’t perform customs he should just attend the classes.
The insensitivity on the part of administration of universities and the resultant denial to bend the rules or create an exception in such tough times adds to the duress of a student.
The possibilities are some of the children will end up with post traumatic stress disorder due to the impact this pandemic is capable of creating.
In such tough times, we can only urge the universities to ameliorate the avoidable stress such as compulsory attendance and examinations which can be either substituted for less stressful alternatives or can be postponed altogether
