“Dauda dauda bhaga bhaga sa
Wakt yeh wakt hai thoda thoda sa
Dauda dauda bhaga.........”
These lines
from Chachi 420 (cross-dressing Kamal Hassan works up a busy schedule as a
nanny / maid / dance choreographer) would not be out of place to describe
school going kids in this day and age.
5 o’clock!
And that alarm goes trrrrrrrrrrrrrr!! Get ready at the speed of Rajdhani
Express and the bike goes vroooommmm!! Coaching classes from 6:30 to 8:30 and
rush to school!! Come back at 3:00 in the afternoon and back to tuitions at
4:00 PM! Come back at 7:00 in the evening, eat some dinner, get some fresh air
and assignments from 8:30 to 11:00 PM. And then, at this hour you tell your
child – “Beta, tuitions & school are important but nothing helps more than
self-study!”
Really? Self-Study? And where do you think is
the time? Don’t you feel its expecting a little too much out of a human? But
then, what’s the solution! The whole world is competing like never before and
it’s the biggest rat race mankind has ever witnessed. The situation faced by
the future of our country seems quite scary, so let’s find out who’s the real
culprit?
Coaching
institutes, per se, are not a bad thing, but they should be used if a child
needs extra attention or wants to delve deeper into a subject. The problem is
that tuitions have now become a mandate and students are being treated as
robots, which is unacceptable to the society. There is actually no one person
to be blamed. It’s the peer pressure, teachers teaching at coaching classes
instead of schools, parents trusting a few famous tuitions more than their
children and children not believing in themselves – it’s a complete package!
The system has been shaken right from its roots.
It has been
established by doctors and scientists that the learning capabilities of the
human mind are at our highest during our school years i.e. between 3 years to
15 years with a peak somewhere around 8 – 11 years. In those years a child’s
mind is like a sponge, absorbing everything, perceiving things around him. Don’t
we want to make sure our children learn the right things?
This problem
calls for serious thinking and correcting actions at all levels.
Parents/students must do a good background check of the teachers and the teaching
methodology followed at various schools before confirming admission. Students
should try and understand the concepts at school and should make use of the
immense resources provided at the school. They must be encouraged to believe
more in self-efforts rather than outside help.
Both public and private sectors should try to
bridge the supply-demand gap in the field of education. Today more and more
people want to study and prosper but there aren’t enough “good” educational
institutes. Also, the content covered in schools and the curriculum of competitive
exams for higher studies should be in sync with each other across the country.
And as a
larger thought, our country has a very high proportion of population
constituted by those less than 15 years of age. Our actions (or lack of) with
respect to the mentoring and tutoring today will shape these minds and the
future of this country. Let’s make sure we leave the right legacy behind.
Here’s to
hoping!