New Delhi: It is not
schoolchildren who are fretting over completing holiday homework
but parents who are busy completing collages and projects as the
capital's schools re-open after a two-month long break Monday.
While there is nothing the parents have not done - be it writing
projects or cutting-pasting pictures in scrap books - they say it
is "unreasonable" to burden children with so much homework which
they are too young to understand.
"Over the last one month, I have been working on my daughter's
holiday homework every single day. It is not difficult that I
can't do it, but the huge amount of it makes me feel cut-off from
different activities that I usually do," Supriya Ganguly, a
parent, told IANS.
Ganguly, whose 5-year old daughter is a class 1 student, says her
personal time was taken up by her daughter's holiday-homework.
"She does not even recognise Hindi alphabets, and she has been
asked to prepare the Hindi alphabetical chain. So it is ultimately
I who will do it," she added.
While homemaker mothers can assist their children in completing
activities, working parents had no option but to resort to
"external help" to prepare models and projects at a price.
"My son is a class 6 student. And being in a 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. job,
I simply could not think of helping him all the way," said Smitha
Gopalan, a government employee.
"So with the help of some colleagues, we found a shop that made
projects and other stuff for children," Gopalan told IANS.
Even as the government schools do not press upon much for the
two-month progress report, private schools make the homework a
part of the academic curriculum which is taken into the cumulative
marks.
"We do not pressurise our students to complete homework. We rather
make it more activity-based so that children enjoy," Madhulika Sen,
Principal of Tagore International school, told IANS.
However, the amount of work this year has added so much
unprecedented pressure that Ganguly plans to take it up at the
next parent-teacher meeting, she says.
"The way the entire family has been pitching in for a 5-year old's
homework has to be seen. I will underline this issue at the next
meeting," Ganguly said.
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