Omkar Dattatray
The destiny of the nation is shaped in her class room is the apt observation of Kothari Education commission. Hence the destiny of the nation rests on the role and responsibility of teachers, parents, students and the state at large.
For a growing, dynamic and a vibrant nation and economy balanced human personalities are needed. Schools are the factories while human personalities are developed and modified to meet the ever growing needs of modern society. The teachers are human engineers and architects who are entrusted with the challenging job of developing balanced human beings in tune with the societal values and cultural traditions. This is the need for democracy of India. By balancing human personalities is meant the development of child’s body, mind and spirit and this is widely recognized definition of the term education as well.
The harmonious growth of child’s multifaceted personality and making him a balanced human being fruitful to his family, society, nation and the world at large is possible only when we are able to take due care of child’s age, tenderness, feelings, emotions, interests, instincts et al. Today’s child is tomorrow’s leader, ruler, doctor, engineer, technocrat and what not. Thus schools are temples of learning and teachers, administrators as well as policy makers have to take care of the child’s tender age and his physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and moral health. Both physical fitness and the psychological fitness is the demand of the modern stressful life and then it had been said that a sound mind rests in a sound body. So the teachers have to take care of the all around development of the child to mould him into a worthy citizen of the secular democracy.
A great irony of our country is that our policy makers fail to plug loopholes in the sensitive sector of education due to political expediency. At the same time we copy the western nations in education as well without giving proper thought to our conditions in rural and urban India. It is every body’s knowledge that our small kids have to carry load of school books and the society is watching it silently. However, it is the cause of concern to all of us. But parents and school authorities are unable to do anything positive to relieve the small children from the burden of excessive book load and work. This burden of greater book load cannot be justified on any account keeping the small age and tender body of the child into consideration.
The problem needs top priority and redressal from a pragmatic point of view. Schools have been termed as kindergarten which means children’s garden. Schools in fact are the garden of flowers where children are delicate and tender flowers and they should be treated and taught as such. Children should be handled and educated with utmost care and caution. The nation has almost overlooked this aspect and is boasting of teaching everything to small boys and girls irrespective of the ill effects, the big bags have on their mental and emotional health. As they say excess of everything is bad and so is the case with excess of school books and workloads. Big school bags with full of school books from languages, drawings, computers, social studies, mathematics, sciences, social sciences, moral studies, current affairs, environmental studies, yogic studies and many more subjects leave the tender child overstrained, fatigued and tired mentally and physically. The child has to read and learn so many things at a time and it makes him dull and bore without any initiative and enterprise.
We try to feed him everything and in many cases end up with not teaching anything properly. The nation has failed to take into consideration child’s mental faculties and physical fitness and capacity. Excess works and book loads will not help in the development of child’s physical and mental faculties but will retard their physical and mental growth. We are advocating to make education child centered and in practice it is the book centered education wherein the importance is given to bookish knowledge. The society does not need book worms but needs men of integrity and honesty who have to shape the future of the nation. No doubt in this age of competition, our children should not lag behind and should not be next to anybody. However, we cannot sacrifice our norms, ethics and values and above all the physical and mental health of our children at the altar of competition and mad consumerism. It is very unfortunate the children are not treated as delicate and tender beings but as donkeys who are forced to take big school bags on their frail and tender backs without any genuine regard to their physical, mental and emotional well being.
A serious effort is needed to do away with excessive book load and work load on children if we have to brighten the future of children and the nation. Reading and learning many books at a time does not allow the child to pay due attention towards play and sports. Thus hampering their physical growth and fitness. It is well established fact that education through play is the best way to teach a child. In practice this fact is underestimated. Hence there is a need to teach a child through play. Commission after commission had been appointed to reform the educational sector and to bring it in tune with requirements of a secular democratic and modern India. Some progress has been achieved but we have still to go a long way to reform our education and transform our society.
There is a great need to reform the school education so that it can contribute its might towards the growth of an egalitarian society. So there is an urgent need to see as to how the book load can be eased and reduced without having adverse effect upon the competitive strength of our children. Something positive needs to be done at an earliest in this regard so that children get enough of time for play, sports, enjoyment, recreation, dance, drama and many more things which interest them. Hence it is necessary to review the courses of study for pre-primary and primary classes so that the children are not made to overwork and over read which the experience shows make them bored, dull and tired.
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