Debate: COVID-19 and school mental health in Pakistan.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and the social distancing procedures have caused disruptions to daily activities. The first preventive procedures by the closing of schools will undoubtedly have short- and long-term consequences for the mental health of school students. The movement restrictions, school closures and stay at home during the COVID-19 pandemic will likely lead to a rise in the rates of domestic violence, loneliness, depression, fear, panic and anxiety, and substance use among school students.

Pakistan has one of the world's largest youth population, with 63% of Pakistanis now under the age of 30 (UN Population Fund Report 2017). Experts believe that this demographic division may have been one of the principal reasons behind the relatively low severity of COVID‐19 morbidity and mortality experienced in the country, compared with similar and neighbouring nations. Given the complicated socioeconomic fabric of the population, with a significant percentage being daily wage workers, the government had responded early on with mandatory ‘smart’ lockdown, and to date, while businesses have slowly opened, schools and other educational institutions remain physically closed.

On the other hand, COVID‐19 response measures such as self‐isolation, social distancing, lockdown of communities leading to limited access to preventive care in primary care settings, poorer economic conditions, restricted travel and delayed vaccination schedules, as well as school closures, have further compounded poor health conditions for young children, especially in low‐ and middle‐income countries (LAMICs) such as Pakistan (Chandir, Siddiqi, Setayesh, & Khan, 2020). Prepandemic, Pakistan already had the world’s second highest number of out‐of‐school children (OOSC) with an estimated 22.8 million children aged 5–16 not attending school, representing 44% of the total population in this age group (NEMIS‐AEPAM, 2018). Mandatory school closures have further compounded the already existing sociocultural issues that keep children out of school, thus further widening the disparity gap.

The provision of education in Pakistan is not universal. Education in Pakistan is delivered by public/government sector (62%) and private (38%) institutions. Government schools are present in most districts across the country, but the quality of education in most of these is not at par with private sector institutes (NEMIS‐AEPAM, 2018), and many are ‘ghost’ schools, with empty buildings standing. This gap then is largely filled by the private sector, largely established in urban centres and some of the large villages (NEMIS‐AEPAM, 2018). Recently, there has been a new conversation by the government about reducing the fragmentation and inequalities and creating a modernized uniform education system. However, given the vast economic, linguistic, cultural and religious disparities between Pakistan's diverse regions, it would be particularly challenging to teach students in remote rural and urban areas the same curriculum. Children, mainly those from disadvantaged backgrounds, do not access schools due to various barriers, including poverty, distances to schools with no transportation facilities, nonavailability of schools and high dropout rates due to lack of awareness for the value of education (NEMIS‐AEPAM, 2018).

After ‘smart’ lockdown in the country, the Ministry of Federal Education and Professional Training published a national education response and resilience plan (K‐12) for COVID‐19 (Ministry of Federal Education & Technical Training, 2020). The framework aimed to ensure continuity of learning for all children identified a range of technology‐based education interventions to support learners and set a policy action to develop, implement and expand Alternative Learning Pathways for children who fall behind due to closures or being out of school. Based on the report, during the pandemic, various virtual educational platforms were utilized to pursue educational Sustainable Development Goal 4 (NEMIS‐AEPAM, 2018). The government initiated the delivery of curricular content for K‐12 via the educational television channel, TeleSchool, which started its broadcast in April. The channel launched with the slogan ‘education at home’ and aims to provide education for grades one through 12, through a set timetable; the broadcast runs from 8 am to 6 pm, with 30‐min slots for each class.

After a short hiatus of planning, most of the private sector schools moved towards some level of online modality of education. The content, quality and methodology of online edification though have been highly variable across institutions, given that most schools and teachers were not familiar with the use of online technology for teaching and learning. This has led to considerable uncertainty for both teachers and learners, and there was an increased perception of stress reported by teachers in preliminary surveys. Student promotions to next academic year, especially for higher grades, were either cancelled or moved to predicted grades based on prepandemic face‐to‐face sessions, causing increased anxiety amongst those applying for colleges and higher education institutions. Given that all schools were closed, some of the government school buildings, mentioned above as the ghost schools, were now allocated as isolation and quarantine centres.

Similar to adults, the unprecedented nature of the pandemic has imposed multifaceted burdens on children and adolescents as well. These have been observed at the individual, familial and communal levels. The challenges include feelings of isolation, social contact restrictions, economic shutdown, closure of schools and out‐of‐home leisure time activities. Parents are asked to support their children with homeschooling, while working from home, with minimal to no external support by other family members and social support systems. This could easily result in emotional distress, mental health problems and violence (Fegert, Vitiello, Plener, & Clemens, 2020). In the context of COVID‐19, when access to therapeutic and allied health services is severely disrupted, the situation has intensified difficulties for children who were not well‐adjusted in schools and those who were seeking specialized help. For parents of children with special needs, the school also represented a source of respite that is now no longer available, increasing not just parental stress but also the risk of child abuse.

It has become evident that the impact of school closures is far beyond the schools. In a rapid needs assessment nationwide, on the question of barriers to education during the lockdown, 89% reported that closure of school had affected children's education, 4% reported inability to pay the children school fee, and 38% reported that children do not have textbooks and other learning materials for continuing their education (IRC, 2020). The continued closure of schools may further widen the gap between the expected years of schooling and adjusted years of schooling, potentially increasing dropout rates and, subsequently, the number of out‐of‐school children. Educational technology interventions can become a burden to the communities without considering how to support the technology, time, money and skills available to ensure the sustainability, cost‐effectiveness of the programme, accessibility, equality and integration of children with disabilities. These barriers may exacerbate pre‐existing divides magnifying the existing rural–urban, gender and socioeconomic divide with the potential to increase the prevalence of child labour both in the short run and in the long run.

Following the global trend of reopening schools for the fall semester, and given a steady improvement in the COVID‐19 situation in the country, the Government of Pakistan has also issued a recommendation for a graded reopening of schools. One can anticipate that returning to school after the extended quarantine may bring its own stressors and anxiety. Students, now used to a relatively unstructured routine, may have difficulty with restarting the routine of going to school and may have to re‐learn behaviours that were disrupted. The return may need an intentional effort to ensure student's engagement and to prevent a predicted rise in school dropouts. The World Bank (2020) has outlined three scenarios of learning losses that governments should prepare for when schools reopen: 1) a loss of learning for all students due to school disruptions; 2) widening disparity with lowest performing children falling further behind while the well‐performing children moving ahead – predicted based on the availability of resources; and 3) increase in the number of school dropouts especially in lower‐income households. Government schools in Pakistan are likely to find themselves facing the second scenario of disparities in student performance and a risk of an increase in the number of children dropping out of school, as in the third scenario outlined by the World Bank. In the backdrop of these challenges, it is crucial for child and adolescent mental health (CAMH) workers to collaborate with schools and ensure healthy and safe return for children to schools.

School mental health (SMH) is becoming an increasing priority in CAMH service models as an effective and viable way of disseminating awareness, mental health literacy and services. Schools vary in the way they address mental health problems based on their socioeconomic status, geography, political stability, religion and culture. SMH initiatives have been proposed by international organizations. However, due to the methodological and contextual limitations in countries such as Pakistan, these initiatives have been challenging to implement. These limitations include a severe shortage of CAMH professionals and lack of availability of resources and skills to confirm screening results, conduct risk assessment and develop referral pathways following the screening, as well as minimal availability and the nonaffordability of the cost of the subsequent intervention. Other barriers include lack of organizational focus, foundational commitment, infrastructure and processes for sustainable implementation, limited access to evidence‐based information, insufficient funding and lack of knowledge and comfort in supporting student mental health.

With a dearth of current published empirical studies, much of the literature has been drawn from previous research evidence on school closures due to previous pandemics. To adequately address the establishment of SMH programmes, countries may need to look at what resources they have at hand, and how they can be optimized. Given that the pandemic would have increased the mental health‐related concerns, schools need to focus on areas of nurturing resilience in children and adolescents by better communication to address their fears and concerns, encouraging routines and physical activities, and taking measures to alleviate loneliness. Parents need to look after their mental health, coping strategies and model positive psychological attitude to support children and adolescents.

Students' mental and physical health will need explicit support in the return to everyday life. The role of governments is vital in mitigating the disruptive impact of the COVID‐19 pandemic on education delivery and outcomes. Top priorities for action as schools reopen would include (OECD, 2020):

Ensuring safety: school buildings must be disinfected, and adequate ventilation of classrooms ensured in an ongoing manner.

Assessing progress and mitigating the impact of learning losses: diagnostic formative assessment of all students will be needed to help plan and organize their learning.

Targeted learning support will be needed, especially for the most vulnerable. Efforts to address learning loss must avoid creating traps for the disadvantaged, for example large‐scale grade repetition.

Ensuring well‐being: many students will experience emotional distress from the pandemic, ranging from anxiety to post‐traumatic stress symptoms. Some students will have lacked physical activity during confinement.

Ethical information

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