Srinagar: Kashmir University’s UGC HRDC on Friday organised a webinar on “Stress and Coping Strategies among Faculty of Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) during COVID-19 Pandemic.”
In his inaugural address, Professor Shabir Ahmad Bhat, Dean Academic Affairs, University of Kashmir, congratulated the HRDC for organizing the webinar on an important theme.
Speaking about the perseverance that teachers have shown during the current pandemic, Prof Bhat termed the teaching community as “academic warriors during COVID”. He said the current online learning experience is a massive challenge for the global education community.
“There is a dire need to sensitise the teaching community, especially in Higher Education Institutions about the stressors witnessed during this pandemic,” he said, stressing on the coping strategies that can help the teaching community to overcome the problems they witness during the current times.
Prof Mushtaq Ahmad Darzi, Director, HRDC, in his welcome address, threw light on the challenges faced by the teaching community during the current COVID crisis.
He spoke about the online teaching model and stressed on the need to evolve coping strategies to achieve academic positivity in the “new normal”.
“As face-to-face classes have become difficult, necessary technical and instructive skills are needed for managing digital class instructions,” he said, thanking Vice-Chancellor Prof Talat Ahmad and Registrar Dr Nisar Ahmad Mir for their constant support to the endeavors of the UGC-HRDC.
The lead speaker for the event, Prof Alok Kumar Chakrawal from Saurashtra University, Rajkot, Gujrat, gave a detailed presentation on the stress and coping strategies and highlighted the high-stress levels which teachers are facing during the current COVID times. He discussed how COVID-19 has brought new challenges to teachers all across the globe and highlighted that switching over to the online teaching model has added to the stress level of teachers with new stressors for them.
“The time pressures, heavy workloads, and work-from-home protocols have created a big physical gap, resulting in unprecedented stress among teachers,” he said.
The participants interacted with the guest speaker on various dimensions of stress and coping strategies. The participants included faculty from various reputed higher education institutions, universities, engineering and management institutions across the country, who also shared their feedback with the organizers.
Dr Sumeer Gul presented a vote of thanks.

KR Desk