RETHINKING TEACHING AND TEACHERS’ WELL BEING POST COVID – ERA

Abstract

The sudden outbreak of the Covid-19 Coronavirus has been an eye opener of sorts. It has
brought many problems – social, political, economic and educational; to the forefront which
had otherwise been turned a blind eye to. It has laid bare the flaws in the Education Sector that
lay unanswered for long; affecting all the stakeholders in the system; mostly unsympathetically.
Of all stakeholders, Teachers, the actual facilitators of the entire educational process, are and
will remain worst affected. With a livelihood to maintain, families to support, innumerable
technical challenges to face, imminent fear and probability of job termination looming large,
health concerns amidst an unforgiving pandemic situation, carrying heavy psychological
baggage and the persistent necessity of maintaining contextual competence in the face of
a Generation Alpha student, Teachers have been rendered an insecure lot with an equally
ambiguous future. As Educational Institutions face closures for an indefinite period of time,
millions of young people and children have been affected across all nations. With millions
of learners away from school, it becomes very difficult to ascertain any significance to the
dwindling role of the teacher or the school as a structural institution. As the two most important
stakeholders of the educational process, the presence of the student validates the role of the
teacher, and vice versa. While governments try to contain the contagion with lockdowns, it
leads to heightening teachers’ insecurities and acts as the initiator of throwing the economy
off-balance – where EIs are unable to pay salaries and are terminating services of teachers,
amplifying the sorry state of unemployment in a Post-Covid World. This paper attempts to
assess some problems that education in general and teachers in particular will wake to, once
the trauma and the confusion is over. It attempts to provide a Qualitative SWOT analysis
for Teaching Professionals post the pandemic. The Methodology involves using a Balanced
Scorecard approach to identify stakeholders concerned, activities to achieve sustainability goals and related performance
measures. It has been observed
that while the situation shows farreaching
implications in the shortterm,
it does open up Pandora’s
Box of opportunities this profession
requires and needs equally. Various
strategies were evaluated on the
basis of their feasibility and enlisted
accordingly. Collective Well-being
and Assimilation of Technology in
Education have evolved as probable
solutions in dealing with it and
looking the “New Normal” in the eye.