The Ministry of Education has developed a module where any teacher can register to seek help to deal with professional stress and burnout. According to the Minister of Education, Prof. Galin Tsokov, this is an important tool, especially for young teachers, because they often feel alone against the challenges of the profession and need to have support in order to integrate and stay permanently in the education system.
The module was developed under the program of the Ministry of Education and Culture for the prevention and rehabilitation of pedagogical specialists and can be found here. In it, teachers can familiarize themselves with the basic concepts of stress, burnout syndrome and mental resilience, as well as fill out a survey on the influence of psychosocial factors of the professional, family and social environment on the risk of burnout syndrome.
Tests are published on the portal to help pedagogues recognize the risks of burnout. Then, according to the results, exercises, techniques and strategies for increasing resilience are offered – 33 guidelines are offered for individual and group techniques, exercises, trainings and strategies for increasing psychological resilience and additional access to resources with useful information: literature, audio and video materials.
The portal also offers individualized services – such as “Individual Stress Management Plan”, “Activating Behavioral Change”, “Progress Check”. They can be used as a stand-alone professional development guide or as part of a training program for prospective/current teachers. Their goal is for educators to receive concrete recommendations that can be applied directly in practice, as well as examples to support them in their daily work.
Among some of the curious recommendations, for example, is practicing meditation or mental visualization of the achievement – generally this is a 15-minute relaxation in which a person imagines a vivid picture of the desired achievement, trying to feel it. Carrying out the exercise “three good events of the day” is also among the recommendations for greater awareness and orientation of thoughts and emotions related to the experiences during the day in a positive perspective. The progressive muscle relaxation technique as well as 4-7-8 breathing are other practices that teachers could try to reduce stress.
A large number of teachers in our country suffer from symptoms of professional burnout, among the reasons for which are excessive paperwork, poor discipline in the classroom, non-participation of a large part of students and their parents in the educational process, etc., according to a study by the Trade Union Education at KT. Support”. Therefore, the union demands that teaching work be recategorized to the second category of work.
The other two modules of the MES program “Prevention and Rehabilitation of Pedagogical Specialists” with a budget of BGN 270,000 for 2024 are also in favor of teachers (the portal to help burnout was developed on the basis of the third module). Up to 100 teachers can go for a preventive examination, and they will be reimbursed up to BGN 50 of the expenses, and up to 1,000 people – to go to rehabilitation under the program of the National Institute of Education, for which they will be reimbursed BGN 150 of the expenses incurred for additional payment of food and reservation fee.