Parents have criticised schools that overburden children with homework after reading about a boy who ran away from home to avoid being punished for bad grades.
On Wednesday, Khaleej Times reported how young Aswin Abraham, spent an evening on a building rooftop rather than tell his parents that he received bad test results.
In a KT poll, more than 92 per cent readers complained that school children are overburdened with home work and tuition classes.
While many sympathise with the family for their ordeal, they say students are pushed to extremes because they are being taxed at school and home with memorisation in a bid to meet the syllabus requirements.
“There might have been some incident that took place at home in the past regarding his studies and grades that made the boy so scared of returning home and facing his parents,” said Siddik from Dubai, in comments emailed to Khaleej Times. “Each student has their capabilities and limits. Parents should be more liberal with their child’s academic performance,” she said.
Vidya Santhosh from Abu Dhabi believes that education has become very competitive, with children being pressured to achieve.
Students find it hard to cope with the rising standards. The little ones have a huge load of books to carry to and from school.”
According to Bindu Saji, this incident could happen again to any Indian family. “There is not a single day that they do not have homework or project or a class test the next day. Hence they cannot relax even for a single day.”
Noushad from Dubai said schools need to reduce the homework they hand out at the end of the school day. “We are sending the children to school to learn there.”
Many students resort to after-school assistance to cope with the workload. “Competition and comparison is leading parents to send their children to tuition classes to get good grades,” said R. Saldanha. She also suggested that schools post the day’s homework on the website for the parents.
Punam, another Dubai resident, blames the Central Board of School Education (CBSE) system followed by most Indian schools. “The kids have to mug (lessons up) and learn everything themselves or go to tuitions. They are slogging from morning to late night, struggling to finish homework.”
The Indian board announced this year that a continuous evaluation system will be implemented in the CBSE schools to take the pressure of studies off students, with many schools in the UAE already following this system. Dr Farooq Wasil, member of the International Committee for CBSE and Director of Asian Schools, GEMS, had informed Khaleej Times in June that international students can look forward to a new curricula that will be aligned to international standards with a focus on application-based learning.
Afshan Ahmed