About eighty thousand learners in the Eastern Cape Province from different schools will be writing their Grade 12 final examinations in November this year, making them the third tranche to write under the National Senior Certificate (NSC) programme.
While this period reflects an end to high school journey, it is also a period that will mark the beginning of a significant transition for these individual learners as they get closer to the realisation of their ultimate dreams.
Obtaining the desired results, as history has previously shown, is not always the case with every learner and reasons for these vary on an individual basis.
In the face of the pressures and struggles that the learners will be encountering during the examination period and beyond it, the Eastern Cape Education Department has sought to provide measures to assist these learners’ pre-examination stress through coordinated internal agency spear-headed by departmental officials.
“This is the first and unparalleled attempt by the department to offer counselling services to all learners throughout the province during this stressful time of their lives,” said DCES and Registered Educational Psychologist Boniswe Kopele.
With potential future careers having been provisionally decided and family expectations mounting, Kopele said that the exam time is always demanding to an extent of being “nerve-breaking” for some of these learners.
“While the trial examinations may have been met with positive views by some learners, others may view it as a starting point to feel the pressure of what is to come. It is in this respect that we want to support those learners who cannot manage their stress levels before and during the exam as well as after the results have been released,” said Kopele.
“Our aim is to prevent dire consequences due to unmanageable bad stress,” Kopele said, giving assurances that “the department will do everything in its power through its counselling services to ward off any adverse consequences, particularly suicidal thoughts, which are normally associated with failure to achieve the expected results. In this respect, it then doesn’t matter whether the learner has been doing well or not, exam time is bound to bring stress. Some stress is good for students while some is bad but it is the bad stress that is the cause for concern and needs to be held in check.”
Ways in which stress manifests itself
Jitteriness and self doubt before and during times of exams does happen to many and sometimes in situations where performance really counts. In the case of the learner, this can be very discouraging to the extent of a learner going suddenly blank during an exam with disastrous results.
Kopele said indicative signs manifested themselves physically and psychologically and can be easily detected.
“Physical symptoms range from loss of appetite, tension headaches, sleeplessness, lack of concentration and panic attacks. Others may experience excessive sweat, trembling and even heart palpitations as the exam time approaches.
“Psychological symptoms can be identified unexplained anger, irritability and lack of concentration which in some cases is induced by over intake of caffeine in the form of coffee or ‘pick-me-up’ drinks.”
Tips on dealing with pre-exam stress
“Staying healthy by exercising regularly, eating nutritious meals and snacks, and getting sufficient sleep will help maintain health and vitality of your brain and nervous system, allowing you to function at peak performance,” advises Kopele.
In addition, she urged learners to draw realistic study time table and realistic demands on what they can achieve and what they cannot. “This is not the time to do catch up studying,” she said. Relaxation methods like breathing deeply, doing a creative hobby or exercising between study times can also assist.
Parents support
Kopele urged parents to support their children during this period by finding ways for them not to let every mistake get them down.
As almost everyone will have failed at something in their life and most people have struggled with a problem during an exam that seemed so easy or obvious afterwards Kopele cited that “Parents must bear in mind and in the process remind their children that nobody’s perfect.”
Department of Education help lines
It is the aim of the Eastern Cape Department of Education to raise awareness of how examinations stress manifests itself among students and to assist them by offering services on how to best manage it.
Departmental officials will be available to assist all these learners as they assigned each for a district. In anticipation of other factors affecting these learners during this time, these services will be extended to learners’ family members as well.
Officials dispatched to offer support to learners will include learning support coordinators, remedial advisors, therapists and psychologists. Their services are free of charge and will be available during office hours until the examinations are over.
Issued by: Department of Education, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
22 October 2009
Source: Department of Education, Eastern Cape Provincial Government
(http://www.ecdoe.gov.za/)
