Child labour of a different kind?
A.B. SIVAKUMAR
RECENTLY, I joined my friend for dinner, and saw him reprimanding his son, studying in Plus Two, for scoring only 99 out of 100 in his internal examination. When I pointed out that it was just an internal test, and the boy should be left to learn from the experience so that he could do well next time, he reprimanded me as well, wondering how I could afford to say that when my own son was also to take the public examination in 2007.
The father also warned the son that he should not watch TV till the public examination was over. I was momentarily stumped and was just wondering why should this drill at all happen.
My friend pointed out that only "centum" in all the three vital subjects of physics, mathematics and chemistry, would secure his son admission to the "DOTE 1" engineering colleges, and education elsewhere would take him nowhere.
The competitive spirit that is now part of the whole "system" is now taking the children too far. In most cases, the joy of learning, of doing things differently is totally gone. As one well-known HR consultant from Chennai says, it is a blatant form of child labour.
Yes, it indeed is. Children just four years old are made to attend Hindi tuition at 5.30 a.m. The homework drill is so huge that it becomes an obsession with both parents and children. No wonder, most children spend sleepless nights or have pathetically inadequate sleep, contributing to their ill health.
Apart from the homework, there are computer classes, music classes, dance classes, and a variety of tuition classes. How do we get over this problem of child labour of a different kind, and minimise its harmful effects?
Very often, parents are unaware of the various and often more exciting career options available. They fail to realise that imposing their will on children will only harm them, and the hypertension that follows is disastrous for the latter. While this realisation is slowly dawning on parents in urban centres, where there is a lot more openness between parents and children, this is totally absent in the semi-urban and rural areas.
The solutions are also very complex. While doing away with the present pattern of evaluation at the Plus Two level will be unthinkable at least in the short run, a certain kind of uniformity in syllabus at the school level (below Standard VIII) throughout the country, at least in English medium schools, can be thought of. This will reduce the burden of children who shift to different States for education when the father gets transferred.
Regular career fairs can also be conducted very often in the B and C class towns and rural areas. Parents should be educated about lucrative careers in emerging fields such as business process outsourcing, media and event management, and bio-informatics, to name a few.
Of course, the UGC, the NCERT and the various State boards of secondary education ought to wake up and do something.
Otherwise, this child labour will continue in its present form and result in vast armies of unhappy youngsters who would not understand their own potential, and remain unemployed and add to social tensions all around.
absivakumar@yahoo.com
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