New Delhi, July 1 (IANS) 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 cuting-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.