Education needs to be a transformative power
Yénifer López Ramos. “There is no more powerful transformative force than education – to promote human rights and dignity, to eradicate poverty and deepen sustainability…” This was a statement made by UNESCO in a document calling for greater effectiveness in the world of education today, entitled: “Rethinking Education: Towards a global common good?”.
Global education has seen itself rocked by the pandemic which has affected the whole world, and the school closures in 168 countries are currently affecting 70.6% of students worldwide -only a few days ago, it affected more than 91% of students. These closures have high social and economic costs, particularly for those students living in highly vulnerable situations and their families, since the pandemic has affected everyone, but not all are affected equally. The educational gap between countries as well as within countries has shown itself clearly, and we have been able to see how this is founded on profound social differences. (more…)
Post-traumatic and post-confinement stress. Psychological effects and vocation for collective work
Víctor Hernández Ramírez. The psychological effects of Covid-19-related confinement have been pointed out by the latest mental health studies[i]: anxiety, depression, sleeping disorders, alcohol and/or other drug abuse, perceptual disorders and concentration difficulties, feeling of isolation and loneliness, low motivation and negativity. On top of all these effects caused by confinement-related stress, there has been an increase in domestic violence[ii] and the negative perception of ageing and loneliness[iii].
These effects will not vanish at the end of confinement; we will most probably see a wide variety of symptoms associated with post-traumatic stress: anxiety episodes or states of anguish in different degrees, different types of depression, psychosomatic symptoms, expressions of phobias that make the return to “normal” life more difficult and general difficulties in reconstructing a sense of meaning for the future. (more…)
