Anxiety as Covid-19 pushes youth to new normal
OMULO OKOTH
The youth have gone berserk. The world is experiencing extraordinary circumstances, hence the abominable situation parents and guardians have found themselves in.
Forget about the statistics being bandied in social and mainstream media. The situation is alarming. Statistics are emanating from the urban areas where disappearances are reported routinely.
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In the rural areas, the new normal is becoming new abnormal. Never have parents seen such a situation.
Students are burning with sexual desires, as if their hormones have hit the crescendo.
The world has turned its back on the HIV/Aids pandemic. Now it’s only about Covid-19 Pandemic.
If students are getting pregnant at the rate of 200 per day is some parts of the country, how many are contracting HIV/Aids?
The focus has turned only on the new pandemic, condemning the other pandemic to the back burner.
John William Ouma, ACK Diocese of Southern Nyanza Education secretary, suggests parents ought to engage youths more with domestic as well as farming work.
Nature hates vacuum, the students are idle. The remedy is two fold—engaging professional counselors or engaging them (youths) in domestic chores to avid less idleness. They should be reading their books and not watching television
Parents and guardians ought to be more vigilant, at this time when the pandemic is heading to its peak.
Parents should also be more concerned about their children and not push for schools to be opened in September.
The reason they want schools to be opened early is because they long abdicated their responsibility.
As government and parents are sparing over the dates for reopening of schools, students are having a hell of a good time with the world.
They have never had such a long holiday, and many, hundreds are enjoying honeymoon, while many as young as 14 years, are getting pregnant.
In the rural areas where civic education is not rampant as in the urban areas, the world has turned on its head, depicting what the Israelites experienced in their Sodom and Gomorra era.
When news emerge of pregnancies emerging from incestuous affiliation as was the case with a women whose daughter confessed that her brother had made her pregnant, it means lust is ruling the roost and peer pressure has got a new meaning.
Incest and fornication have become the new normal. Reports are made but authorities are more inclined to handling such matters at family arbitration.
Teachers will confront a new phenomenon when schools reopen. Public schools no longer force students to undergo pregnancy tests, like was the case years ago.
Pregnant students are also not expelled, according to new regulations, thanks to the ever expanding democratic space and freedom the world is enjoying.
Teachers are facing a dilemma. Some schools may reopen with 50 per cent pregnancy cases, and teachers will be treading along counseling potential parents while preparing students for examinations. A new normal, that is. - Writer is an award-winning sports journalist and contributes articles to syndicated media—[email protected]
