Experts point to the causes and solutions of students' stress

What is the link between students' stress and the education system? Here is what some experts had to say:

Carmel Borg, dean, Faculty of Education, University of Malta:

Malta is one of the few countries where transfer from one sector of the education system to another is selective.

Summative exams, rather than formative assessment, dominate Malta's assessment scene. Within such a context, exams assume disproportionate importance and, as a result, generate a lot of anxiety within the family and in schools.

Anxiety and stress are not solely linked to a prospective performance and a consequent result. There is a culture of bullying, labelling and pupil, teacher and family rivalry linked with summative exams and selection.

In the public system, children are introduced to this culture very early in their life. The emotional wounds sustained by some children in the process of trying unsuccessfully to overcome the hurdles created by the local system of assessment are difficult to heal. With a School Psychological Unit on the brink of extinction, some children are likely to remain scarred for life.

The fact that exams transfer pupils to schools, which are not equitably resourced, contributes further to the anxiety and stress experienced by children and significant adults.

The National Minimum Curriculum document provided a roadmap for the future of assessment within the local education system. Six years down the road there is very little to indicate that the system is on the verge of a genuine transformation of its assessment discourse, culture and methods.

The major stakeholders - teachers and parents - seem to subscribe to conservative assessment policies and procedures. Current industrial relations are not helping in the process of transformation.

Schools are not yet prepared structurally, organisationally, pedagogically and culturally for smooth transitions, where assessment serves children rather than labels them; the cards are stacked against a real paradigm shift in this important area of the education system.

Professor Kenneth Wain, chairman, Foundation for Educational Services, and Professor at the Department of Education Studies, University of Malta:

I believe that stress in schools is due to a number of different factors and cannot be pinned down to one cause. Moreover, the causes of stress are complex and vary between different students.

1) I do think, however, that our selective public education system and streaming policies, which are completely unjust and out of phase with the time, contributes to the problem in primary schools in no small way.

2) The problem is exacerbated by the gross overloading of syllabuses at all levels, right up to matriculation - it would seem that our policy makers have not heard of the idea of lifelong learning, which contradicts the idea of trying to teach everything in the short period of formal education and emphasises a different approach to learning - but then, unlike the rest of Europe, we do not even have a national lifelong learning strategy.

3) A third problem, in this respect, arises from the fact that we have done next to nothing to follow what the National Curriculum says about assessment, which is still summative at all levels of the system, and pedagogy, which should be more learner-friendly.

4) Finally, add to this the dismal failure to implement most of the National Curriculum's proposals - an evaluation report on the NMC should have been published by the National Curriculum Council in 2005 - and you don't need to look much further for the causes of stress.

What we need to do is bring our educational system into the modern (or better still post-modern) world, care more about what is happening to our children, and take our National Curriculum seriously.

Fr Patrick Magro sj, rector, St Aloysius College:

There are both elements of positive stress as well as negative stress in our educational system; however, if we had to put both on the balance I think that the latter would outweigh the former.

Signs of this can be clearly seen in the students', parents' and teachers' attitudes towards education.

On a level of principle so many people involved in the education sector agree that we should join forces to eliminate excessive stress. But unfortunately these good principles are not leaving their effect on the decision-making mechanism, and so things remain more or less the same.

For example, it is easy to say that we should aim at an educational system where we do not promote a "one size fits all" idea, but rather one that promotes individualised attention to all students.

But, what concrete measures are being taken in schools to promote this new approach to education? And, what support is the educational system offering to schools like ours, and others, that are doing their utmost to take inclusion seriously and to create individualised programmes of education.

Educators can eliminate excessive stress by being more involved in decision-making on a national level - this would give them the opportunity to transform the stress they see in their students into decisions to improve our educational system.

Parents need to be able to love their children not for what they can be but for who they are - this, I feel, is one of the greatest challenges a parent faces, and living up to this challenge will make all the difference in their children's life.

Students will never totally eliminate stress from their lives, caused by studies, family life and other reasons, but they have to learn how to cope with it by seeking help and by learning to reflect on their lives.

Carmen Zammit, commissioner for Children:

Malta is obliged to recognise, respect and promote the right of children to play, and participate freely in recreational, leisure, cultural and artistic activities, in terms of Article 31 of the UN Convention of the Rights of Children.

In December last year, a study by Dr Valerie Sollars, head of the University's Department of Primary Education, commissioned and published by the Office of the Commissioner for Children, found among others that the pressures brought on by our exam-oriented system, namely home work and private lessons, are the key factors that deter children from engaging in play, recreational, cultural and leisure activities after school.

I believe that after-school activities should be provided within the school and community, as this would contribute towards making families' lives easier. Activities during this time should preferably not be of an academic nature, but cultural activities enhancing the creativity of children and young people, she said.

One of the crucial factors in stress management for children is their parents. Parents can help their children learn to keep the harmful effects of stress at a minimum. Parents should monitor their own stress levels. We emphasise the importance of keeping communication lines open, as children and young people feel better about themselves when they have a good relationship with their parents.

Parents need to shape daily schedules with their children in mind. The better flexible conditions of employment to accommodate working parents will surely make the work-life balance easier.

However, it is difficult to point fingers or to blame solely the educational system. Psychologists tell us that stress is a normal response that everybody feels from time to time. Studies say that stress can be helpful because it motivates people. It is when stress starts interfering with daily activities, relationships and health that it is bad. When this happens to children and young people it is indeed worrying.

Notwithstanding this, one should keep in mind that different children of different ages manage stress in very different ways. The way stress is managed depends on various factors: a child's personality, maturity, life circumstances and style of coping all make a difference.

Children and young people, who are subjected on a continuous basis to situations where stress influences negatively their lives and impedes their development, are not able to fully enjoy their right to life and development. So from a children's rights perspective one could also argue that unhealthy levels of stress hinder a child's right to life and development access (Article 6 of the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child).