Children subjected to high levels of exam stress

School children are being subjected to an unnecessarily high level of stress due to the educational system. This has raised the concern of parents, teachers, heads and educational professionals, who yesterday morning met for a half-day seminar organised by the Paulo Freire Institute.

The institute's director, Fr Edgar Busuttil, SJ, who opened the seminar, said that a small amount of stress was beneficial to children, as deadlines help children to work better. However, high stress levels are detrimental to the children's mental and physical health.

Speaking on behalf of a group of parents who conducted various discussions with other parents and professionals over the past months, Carmen Muscat confirmed that high levels of stress negatively affect both children and their parents.

Although the children's abilities vary, she said children, especially in primary schools, were being made to study complicated and far-fetched details which are unnecessary at such an elementary level. Teacher Manwel Fenech and school head Dorothy Fenech said that although stress may also result from excessive emphasis placed by parents, certain syllabi require too much effort from young children, and some topics taught in secondary schools are often a repetition of what the children would have learned in primary schools.

Discussing the effects of stress on children, Elisa Camilleri from the Richmond Foundation and Bernard Caruana from the Child Guidance Clinic said that while children are spending less time on interacting with family and friends, social activities should always play an important role in the child's daily schedule.

It was felt that parents are sometimes part of the cause of stress placed upon children. Panellists and members of the audience said that unfortunately some parents incorrectly assessed their child's performance through the amount of filled-in copybook pages. On the other hand, the educational system places too much emphasis on the final written assessment.

A panel composed of Frans Borg, Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Education, Peter Vassallo from the Education Division, Fr David Cilia from the Church Schools Association, and Jane Callus, a teacher at St Aloysius' College, discussed the proposed reforms to the education system.

Mr Borg outlined the documents and recommendations proposed by the government, one of these being the document For Children to Succeed, which saw the launch of a pilot project to amalgamate some schools into colleges.

In a closing speech, Children's Commissioner Sonia Camilleri called for collaboration between parents, teachers and other stakeholders. She also said that while the proposed recommendations were very valid, interim measures needed to be taken until certain reforms are finalised.