[pinkypanther]

As Betty* lay curled into a ball on the floor — in tears, hyperventilating, heart beating rapidly — the  secondary school teacher hoped the panic attack would fade soon. Because she knew she could not afford to spend time away from work.


“I have to get over it, I have to go and mark (papers) and do my work,” she thought.


Her panic attacks typically happen once a fortnight. A heavy workload, dealing with parents’ expectations and large class sizes are perennial stressors, for her and some other teachers.


It was worse for Betty when Singapore moved to full home-based learning in April last year amid concerns over escalating COVID-19 infections. The frequency of her panic attacks increased to twice a week.


“We suddenly had to pivot to online learning … in a  very short couple of days, push out and create resources from scratch, record ourselves doing online lectures, design online quizzes,” she said.


“That was extremely stressful. We still needed to give feedback to our students and continue giving them work and continue  preparing more resources. It was like the work never stops. I was really, really burnt out — very, very depleted.”

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