By Rachel Mohamed
Today marks World Mental Health Day, the day is dedicated to raising awareness about mental health issues, promoting mental well-being, and advocating for better mental health services.
This comes as matriculants are gearing up to write their final matric exams for the class of 2024.
Speaking of VOC’s Breakfast show on Thursday, Prof. Salomé Human-Vogel, the associate professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Pretoria highlighted the stress associated with writing the final matric exams can negatively affect the mental health of today’s youth.
“I think what is important to acknowledge is that the stress of the matric exams is real and probably to be expected that children and parents will feel quite stressed at this time of the year.
Not only do we know this is an important exam that will determine their future and what they are going to do next year,” she said.
Human-Vogel further emphasized that as a society looking at the outcome and measuring the matriculant’s success based on how they perform academically in the matric exams contributes to those children and parents feeling very stressed about the situation.
“However, it is important to remember that this is one milestone in the child’s life journey but is not the end of their journey.”
Listen for the full interview:
VOC News
Photo: Pexels
