Is It Better To Ban The homework & Stop Private Tuitions…?

 

Today things have got so competitive and syllabus so difficult that children have to spend more time on studies, especially in our country.Home Work, Tuitions, Special Classes, Coaching classes has mushroomed. Our education system needs a lot of change not only at the primary level but through out all the levels.

Underlining the urgency for curriculum reform at the primary level, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen said that Government should ban the homework and stop private tuitions.

Amartya Sen also stressed the need to complete the allotted curriculum in class hours to make home work redundant. According to him, a review of the curriculum should include basic skills or reading and writing and counting for students that would help complete the syllabus in allotted school hours, reduce home work and thus minimize the dependence on private tuitions.

Thirty four per cent primary school students depend on private tuitions in West Bengal. And if findings of Pratichi India Trust in Kolkata are to be believed, 78 per cent of parents who sent their kids to free primary schools and Sishu Shiksha Kendras in rural Bengal feel private tuitions are unavoidable. Amartya Sen heading the Trust holds the practice of burdening students with excess homework responsible for this phenomenon.

Comparing the current findings with the Trust's first report seven years ago, Amartya Sen argues that the prevailing system, expecting students to complete part of their curricula at home, has perpetuated backwardness among weaker classes.

Amartya Sen also opines that the worst affected are parents who are incapable of teaching their children personally. "When they lack that, we instead of removing inequality through education perpetuate inequality through education,”

Although, the report has identified several lacunae in the primary education system, it has recorded significant improvements in the performance as well as coverage of primary education since the first report.

It also reminds policy makers that there still remain defects and infelicities that must be overcome. But the big message it sends out is to do away with homework.

Recently the joint winner of chemistry Nobel Prize Venkatraman Ramakrishnan said “don’t burden children with too much homework.It is always better to complete all lessons during school hours”.

The NCERT rules disallow undue emphasis on homework. But, banning homework entirely too wouldn't be correct. Homework is essential to make sure that a child revises whatever is taught in school at home too.

Homework is a burden when it is nothing more than a poor teacher's shifting responsibility to the unprepared student. Homework is not a burden when a good teacher assigns tasks that fire a student's interest in learning

The teachers focus should be on finishing the lessons during school hours. This will free the students of the burden, and they will also get time to pursue extra-curricular activities. If schools focus on the progress of every child, no parent will opt for tuition classes.

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