On Diversity of Stress

photo from Google

1. This morning I read the news ietm in NST on stress with some amusements. The reports say the Prime Minister's job is the most stressful, followed by that of Chief Justice, Doctors especially surgeons, Inspector General of Police, Attorney-General, MACC Chief and so on including that of teachers.

2. I personally view that the dgeree of stressfulness is proportion to their salaries, allowances, perks, priviledges etc. The Prime Minister, Chief Justice etc are stressful because they received a lot of monetary and priviledges returns. There are exceptions of course, the fishermen, taxi drivers, bus drivers are also stressful but their monetary returns make them among the poor and the under-priviledges.

3. The teachers are also quoted as stressful lot and their salaries and priviledges are small. Here I disgareed with the findings. Amongst the teachers include the lecturers, so they are also a stressful lot. Here I could give the readers some of the in-sights of the factors that make the lecturers stressful, though not of their own doings.

4. Teaching. It was so much fun in the 1980s. But now we are supposed to prepare our lecture notes and deposit in SPIN. We are suppose to take the attendance of our class, that routine I remembered well when I was teaching at Sultan Ismail College, Kota Bharu in 1973-74. I thought university teachers are spared of this routine

5. Supervising. Teachers in schools don't have to supervise BS, MS and PhD students but we all do in universities. To-day it becomes more stressful when we are supposed to handle and supervise foreign students, whose English and fundamental of science are inadequate.

6. Research. Teachers don't have to do research but we all do in universities. No funds no research and funds are not easy to come by because R & D administrators don't understand what R & D is all about. How could they understand for they have never done good scientific research in their life.

7. Publication. Teachers don't have to publish any thing, just like the other civil servants in the ministries, but we all do in the universities. No publication no promotion. To-day there are many silly indicators being dragged into our academic life such as Impact Factor journal etc. So far only two local journals have Impact Factor, so we have to penetrate oversea journals. The oversea journals now were run like a business venture, you pay USD we publish your unedited articles. Is this not stressful?

8. Service to community. All of us teachers and lecturers do but of different kinds and degrees. Taechers don't have learned societies to look after, teachers don't organise scientific international or regional conferences, teachers don't have to advise NGOs and government agencies. Yet they are stressful

9. My conclusion is simply ... NST published what I call an illusion.