Lost school-days won’t really hit students hard
Sakaal Times: The forced closure of schools in Pune and Pimpri-Chinchwad due to the swine flu scare has thrown up an unprecedented issue – how will the schools and students cope with the loss of classroom hours and catch up with the syllabus and be prepared in time for the annual and board examinations ?
Most schools have taken extraordinary measures to try and complete the syllabus. Several of them have cut down on extra-curricular activities and preparations for inter-school and other competitions. Most have reduced the games, sports, crafts, music, dance and other such classes. Some have deferred their annual gatherings. Others have curtailed their morning assemblies and breaks. And some have even rescheduled their timings. In some schools, committed teachers are devoting extra time to the more enterprising students.
All said and done, this is an just an extraordinary situation; not an unsurmountable one. It calls for not just schools and students, but more importantly, the parents to face the situation with pragmatism. As Albert Einstein said, “In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity”. And that is exactly what some students have turned the forced holidays into – an opportunity to revise, complete assignments and projects, and take the help of parents and elders to do some self-study. For these students, adversity became an opportunity.
Unfortunately, there are parents who seem to believe that since the situation was not of their making, the onus of completing the syllabus lies solely and entirely with the teachers and the schools. There is resentment over curtailment of Diwali holidays, and conducting exams immediately thereafter.
It is time the coming generation became accustomed to lesser number of vacations and holidays and greater number of working days.
Even as I write this, president Obama is seriously thinking of adding 300 hours of school time to schools in the US.
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