A Case Study on Ambalamugal Medical Aid Society Initiative By BPCL-Kochi Refinery

Abstract

In tod ay's world of abundance and mounting desires, there seems to be a rat race to strive for higher and highermaterial gains. A climate for innovations and creativity is emerging, where intellectual wealth is accumulating theplethora of new knowledge and skills, turning the threats into opportunities. There was never so much need felt forsuperior intellectual wealth. Education, particularly higher education, is seen as a major foundation in implementingthe complex process of change. Really, " th ese are tough tim es for a tea che,: ., (Smylie, 1999). It is tough because ofincreasing demand from the teachers and due to a progressive shift in the role expectations. Under suchcircumstances, the stress is inevitable. Research reveals the fact that teaching is a stressful occupation (Dworkin,Haney, Doworkin and Telschow, 1990; Sigler and Wilson, 1988; Kyriacou, 1987 ; Schwab, Jackson and Schuler,1986; Pines and Maslach, 1980) and the stress has increased as the relationship between society and education hasbecome more complex (Esteve and Fracchia, 1986). In fact, academicians throughout the world deal with asu bstantial amount of ongoing occupational stress (Kinman, 200 I).In India, earlier, the teachers did not have to encounter so many stressful situations, but with new academic demands,and also when the University Grants Commission is in the process of introducing new regulations in which teacherswill be subjected to a performance-based assessment system that will determine the ir career advancement, th eteachers wi ll ha ve to learn how to manage stress . The new system will not only take into account a teacher'sperformance inside the classroom in terms oflectures, practical and tutorials, but will also emphasize on research andacademic contributions (HT, 20 I 0). According to Cook and Phillip (200 I) , stress refers to the body's psychological,emotional and physiological response to any demand that is perceived as threatening to a person's well-being. Stressknows no boundaries. The degree of stress experienced depends on many factors. First, the demand mu st beperceived. People must be aware that it exists/ as threatening (having the potential to hurt them if they do not reactappropriately). Second, the threat must be to something that is important to people (has the potential to substantiallyaffect their well-being). Finally, people experiencing the threatening demand must be uncertain about the outcome(not sure that if they can deal with it effectively). Among li fe situations, the workplace stands out as a potentiallyimportant source of stress, purely because of th e amount of time spent in this setting (Erkutly and Chafra, 2006). Thus,stress in general a nd occupational stress, in particular, is a fact of modem-day life that seems to ha ve been on theincrease. According to NIOSH ( 1999) , "Job stress can be defined as th e harmful physical and emotional responsesthat occur when the requirements ofthejob do not match the capabilities, resources or needs oft he worker. "Stress is not always negative or harmful and indeed, the absence of stress is death (Selye, 19 76). But different peoplehave different feelings and reactions in response to the stressors oflife. Individual differences affect perceptions andinterpretations of events around us. They contribute to our experience of stress and ou r decisions what to do to dealwith the stressors; our choice of coping process (Moran, 1998). Lu et al. (2003) explained that vast individualdifferences in vulnerability to stress alter an indi vidual's perception of a potential source of stress (direct effect),impact on the transformation of perceived stress into various consequences of stre ss (indirect effect), and amelioratethese stress consequences (direct effect).