More stress and work pressure due to corona
Providing digital education creates more stress and work pressure in MBO, HBO and WO. Teachers also work longer hours in this corona time. This is evident from a survey under AObmembers.
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The corona crisis is also putting a heavy burden on the teaching staff in MBO, HBO and WO, according to a poll that AOb held among its members late last month. Employees experience more stress, more work pressure and also work longer hours.
At the same time, roughly half of the staff think that the sense of collegiality has decreased. The same applies to perceived safety. 'These results are alarming, especially because a lot of overtime was already being worked on before the corona crisis', say Tamar van Gelder and Douwe van der Zweep, daily directors of the AOb, in a brief to the minister.
Monitor work
Many employees now work partially or almost entirely from home. In the survey, some of the people indicate that they have physical problems due to a lot of screen work. A considerable number of the members also indicate that they no longer maintain their mental health for much longer.
Furthermore, digital education leads to a major loss of quality according to almost all teachers in MBO, HBO and WO. This loss of quality can be limited by the respondents by scaling down, because in smaller groups the interaction between teacher and student is better guaranteed. Preparing online education does take more time than preparing physical education.
Since the outbreak of the corona virus, education has been delivering a continuous top performance
Van Gelder and Van der Zweep are very concerned about the lack of perspective. 'Since the outbreak of the coronavirus, education has consistently delivered top performance. The sprint that has started cannot continue for months.' The situation that has now arisen calls for sharper priorities and extra staff. 'When considering what a program can or cannot do, the workload of staff and the quality of education must always be weighed heavily.'
Visitations
According to both AObadministrators, there must be time to hold student evaluations and visitations. 'Teachers are doing everything within their power to provide good education under the current circumstances.'
Furthermore, the AOb that the RIVM measures at institutions must be closely monitored. 'Physical presence must be as safe as possible for all students, teachers and other staff.'
Psychosocial
Finally, the AOb since this spring, there have been various signals indicating an increase in psychosocial problems among lecturers and researchers. 'In order to gain insight into this worrying development, we think it is important that the minister actively monitors this,' say Van Gelder and Van der Zweep. 'And if the figures give reason to do so, appropriate measures must be taken quickly.'
