220 academic days; students should not be made to bear additional academic load

The High Court has stayed the stubborn decision to fix the number of academic days at 220. The court cancelled the decision to make Saturday a working day just after the government accepted in principle the two-year-old MA Khader Committee report on school education reforms. Saturdays except second Saturdays were made working days for schools, without any consultation with education experts, teaching community, students or general society. The representatives of the teachers' organizations in the opposition were on the protest field strongly opposing this decision. The ruling party unions remained silent only because they could not protest publicly. This reform was imposed by the Department of Education without realizing how boring and mind-numbing six days of classes and studies every week can be. The government is making a move for this action which will make students hate academics, labelling it as a decision taken to raise the standard of education. Although the academic days are fixed at 220 in the school calendar, schools had to be closed for several days in most districts due to rough weather. It is common practice for teachers to make up for possible missed days by taking extra classes later. Making every Saturday a working day prevented such activities also. Moreover, opportunities to bring out children's mental, athletic and creative talents are getting destroyed. It is not customary to confine children to classrooms in many foreign countries. If the curriculum is prepared with good planning, it will benefit the children a lot. Although curriculum reform is done frequently, in effect it puts an extra burden on the students. Lessons are imposed without considering the interests of the children.

Experts say that children do not get any special benefit from studying for six consecutive days. Moreover, this excessive study load can lead to destroying the natural talents of children. Anyone can understand that continuous learning can be a hindrance to independent thinking and bringing out different levels of skills. Instead of moving an appeal against the decision of the High Court single bench, the decision should be accepted and the children should be saved from the burden of studies.

Although it has been almost two years since the report of the Khader Committee, which was appointed to study the issues related to the change of school timings, revision of examination calendar, teacher appointment conditions, etc., came to the attention of the government, the report came for review only a few days back. The report had created a lot of controversy even before it saw the light of day. It will be difficult for the government to implement many of the Khader Committee's recommendations, including changing school timings from 8 am to 1 pm. Therefore, the government is looking at whether each recommendation can be implemented in consultation with the concerned parties. If the report is accepted in principle by the cabinet, it can be expected that something will happen. As the report has not yet been made public, the public is not sure what the recommendations are. The government should be ready to make the report public as soon as possible.