By Michelle Crean

A group of local students have launched a new project to raise awareness about academic stress not only in their school, but nationally.

Young Social Innovators (YSI) from Killarney Community College plan to explore the struggle several students go through everyday either through exams or pressure from homework through 'Dedicated to Educated'.

Students taking part in the project are Tamika Heaphy, Oliwia Ochnik, Sophie Jacobi, Ona Moreno Font, Blanca Beltran Juan, Irene Rueda Mosserat, Angelina Kendel, Rabea Flugel, Chloe Herlihy and Dominic Czuluk.

"It is about raising awareness about academic pressure and stress for students as our goal is to raise awareness of the struggle several students go through everyday whether it would be over an exam or just pressure from homework," Chloe Herlihy said.

"A goal we are aiming for is that people will be able to understand academic stress does not just come from school, it equally comes from your surroundings and environment. From working with our guidance counsellor and interviews with teachers, we found that academic stress can affect one's mental health and how they see school. From our own studies carried out we decided to survey students and asked questions like “do you know what academic pressure is?”. The results from the whole school was that 72% of students knew what academic pressure was."

She explained that it was clear that the Junior years did not understand what academic pressure was.

"After handing out our surveys and calculating the results we came to find that just over 23% of students ignore their academic stress and do not try to ease their stress or do not know how. During our interviews with teachers, we noticed a similarity all the teachers talked about noticing the stressed students overexerting themselves, not being motivated to go to class and being not motivated to do homework. We want to change this for all students in the county and country."

Academic pressure can come from many influences, such as pressure from parents, but also from oneself, because one may compare oneself too much with others and stress all the time to be like others.

"We are working with our guidance counsellor to create a presentation for students on tips and tools on how to deal with stress from study. Once this is completed, we will be going class to class showing this PowerPoint. We also aim to work with and fundraise for Southwest Counselling."

Lorraine Crowley, TY Coordinator and YSI Guide, said these Young Social Innovators have shown such passion to raise awareness and create change when it comes to academic pressure.

"They really want to educate students on how they can limit their stress while studying at the same time.”

For more information email dedicatedtoeducated@gmail.com, Instagram: dedicatedtoeducated, TikTok: dedicatedtoeducated, YouTube: dedicated to educated, website: Dedicatedtoeducated.boxmode.io, or Pinterest: dedicated to educated.