PRESIDENT of the Jamaica Teachers' Association Owen Speid, claiming that with fewer educators dying since schools were shuttered in early March due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, says it might be an indication that the stress levels of the classroom have adversely impacted the health of teachers.
Since COVID-19 and the schools are shuttered, teachers are at home and even though they are having challenges dealing with the emergency virtual teaching, what we are finding is that since March 13, because they are out of the stressful classrooms, the hot classrooms, is that we only have had about two or three deaths since March 13, 2020,” the controversial JTA head told a Rotary Club of St Andrew, yesterday.
“That might be some sort of research we need to embark on to see if in truth and in fact the stress levels in our schools are causing deleterious impact on our educators,” Speid said.
In the meantime, Speid, who called for an audit to be conducted of school plants to gauge the resource needs, charged that a number of schools are woefully short of resources and have classrooms which hark back to the 80s.
to ensure that schools are equipped for teaching and learning and the classrooms are conducive.
