Our over-burdened children

Once upon a time, it was assumed that children would go to school and their academic hours would be confined and limited only to the school hours. But the actual situation goes far beyond the reality. Every student is to remain extremely busy with his or her studies, keeping their parents busy as well. Not only parents, but also they engage private tutors to keep their academic studies not less strenuous than that of an SSC examinee. Young kids are physically, mentally, and psychologically over-burdened.

But who cares about it? Neither the teacher nor the parents nor the government seem to be bothered about it. These children often don't even have any playground to play in or time to do so. But play is an essential condition for the mental and physical growth of the children in a balanced way.

What is the need of this kind of competition? Will these children sit for their public examination earlier now? What is the need of this sort of pressure upon their green mind? Can't we arrange such kind of atmosphere for these kids which will keep their academic affairs limited to school compound and hours until he or she at least reaches class four? Can't we lessen our dependence on private teachers? For mental and physical growth of our children, we must walk towards this situation soon otherwise we must wait to see a graver situation in this line.

In response to the increasing number of students, kindergarten schools have sprung up in every nook and corner of our cities in general and Dhaka in particular. And early in the morning guardians of various categories are seen going to schools with their kids. These kids cannot complete their sleep as children need to sleep more than adults, which we have miserably failed to understand. As the young kids cannot enjoy full sleep they suffer from various kinds of physical and mental ailments.

Moreover, the syllabus of kindergarten schools often isn't fit for the children. Within a limited time they are to cover the syllabus. With the syllabus covering pressure, the continuous examinations make the children more burdened and mentally busy. With their business, the guardians are also busy. They compete with each other. If any child obtains a little lower marks than another kid, his or her guardian takes it otherwise and gives more pressure to her child just to overtake the other one. It is another unhealthy situation prevailing among the guardians. These guardians take it as a prestige concerned matter. They hardly bother about the containing capacity of the kids.

Shouldn't we change this scenario? How can we do it? The Ministry of Education must immediately form a committee comprised of national and international education experts, child psychologists, and social scientists to ascertain to what extent the present academic pressure given to our young kids in different kindergarten schools is reasonable. The committee must ascertain whether the examinations conducted by these schools are acceptable. During this period of age children reallyshould not sit for any examination. Examination creates a kind of fear and tension among the child students. It is very unreasonable that the little kids must sit for admission tests to get admission in the famous schools of the country and the little children are to receive special coaching in different coaching centres set up or organised by the teachers of renowned schools. It is causing childhood trauma as well as wasting national money. In this admission test, very tough questions are set just to baffle the children. Sometimes it is seen that some questions are set in this test which are SSC examination questions and sometimes even BCS examinations. It seems that there is no one to look into this matter. This situation must not continue in the greater interest of the nation.

As the government and the society have miserably failed to cater to the demand of child education for the increasing number of children, private individuals have established kindergarten schools either to earn some extra money or to make an arrangement for employment. And all these schools are housed in small rented houses which stand far away from satisfying the criteria of a school. Most of these schools don't have necessary facilities for housing a family let alone a school. A school cannot be established in this way. The government also is unable to establish schools for the increasing number of children.

In this situation what should we do? The government can ask the owners of several schools to make a beautiful and suitable school campus merging the existing little ones where necessary facilities for the children are available. This situation will ensure better educational facilities for the children as well as it will lessen the unhealthy competition among the different schools.

A uniform syllabus must be introduced for all the schools according to the age of the children. No school should be allowed to follow its own unmonitored syllabus. Another thing that must change is the meaning of government control. In most of the cases, government control means a way of earning illegal income of some government officials instead of bringing any good for which the control was imposed. It must not be made as a channel of earning some extra money for the officials of education ministry.

When many schools are combined into one, necessary facilities could be made available easily to the students. Every school could be able to retain a doctor and a child psychologist. Until schools could be made attractive to the students, they will never bring any good what ever results they make. A very bad tradition has established that guardians don't bother about extra-curricular activities of the students. They just bother about results at the cost of the children's mental, physical, and psychological health.

Every child is burdened with masses of homework. It has become a mandatory affair for all the kindergarten and like schools to give a lot of homework. The children of this age need to play a lot in the open air which they are already deprived of. Their study should be only through games and fun -- and this game like study should be limited to school hours. No homework should be given to the students. But this unhealthy practice has engulfed the schools, guardians, children, indeed the whole society. This illogical practice and competition must be stopped without any delay.

The author is an NGO activist working with the PACE Programme, BRAC.