Next April, Education launches a campaign to prevent exam anxiety and monitor its cases

Damascus-SANA

The Ministry of Education is preparing to launch an awareness campaign next April aimed at training students to deal with exam anxiety, which is the first of its kind after monitoring many cases of anxiety symptoms among students in exam centers, which sometimes affected their performance and psychological state, according to the Director of School Health at the Ministry, Dr. Hatoun Al-Tawashi.

Dr. Al-Tawashi indicated to Sana that the Ministry, in cooperation with the World Health Organization, will launch the campaign in all governorates, preceded by training school health and psychological counseling cadres on how to manage exam anxiety and spreading awareness messages in schools through interactive sports and art activities, in addition to holding parental awareness councils to alleviate students’ anxiety regarding For exams in general and for certificates of basic and secondary education in particular.

Al-Tawashi stated that the idea of ​​the campaign came after the mobile teams in the exam centers monitored high rates of symptoms of physical anxiety, noting that the campaign coincided with a large media campaign to broadcast seminars for psychological and educators counselors and doctors trained on mental health programs to ensure that awareness messages reach the widest segment of cadres Education, students and their families.

Al-Tawashi explained that the teams’ work during the campaign includes training students on how to accept the idea of ​​exam results in all its degrees, overcoming anxiety, and monitoring advanced cases that need treatment, whether through a psychological or social counselor, or referring the student to a specialist doctor for treatment in severe cases associated with panic attacks and desire in suicide.

The symptoms of exam anxiety appear within four levels: “ideas” where the child has negative thoughts about the difficulty of the exam and his inability to overcome it, and “feelings” such as fear, tension, anxiety, anger and “behaviour” such as preferring isolation to engaging with his peers, friends and surroundings, according to the mental health and psychosocial support trainer In the World Health Organization Lubna Al-Issa.

Anxiety is sometimes accompanied by physical symptoms, as Al-Issa explained. The exam period appears, such as trembling, cold extremities, and lack or excessive appetite. It may increase in the exam hall to appear in the form of muscle spasms and unexplained pain such as abdominal pain, colon, migraine, head pain and sweating.

Exam anxiety factors increase, according to Al-Issa, such as restricting the student’s assessment to his academic grades and the pressure of parents, society and teachers.

Bushra Barhoum - Rehab Ali

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