In India formal education is open for the kids who have completed at least five years of age. Even till the late 1980’s teachers have to canvass among parents to admit their kids in schools. Then, kids who were even seven years old would get admitted into first standard. Due to the epochal societal and economic changes that had taken place in the recent years, tender kids who are not even two years old are out of their homes and of their mothers’ laps.
More and more women have joined the formal work force and an unprecedented migration towards cities has resulted in fragmentation of joint families into nuclear families. Left with no option, parents seek a shelter for their loved ones during the day time. Thousands of Crèches and Pre-schools have sprung up across the nation where babies and young children are cared for during the day.
The rat race for success becomes more intensive as the parents think that their kids have only one option if they want their survival and success- that is education. The rural life used to nurture multiple skills and talents in a natural environment. Even an uneducated farmer knows the entire scheme of things for his crops, building small or big houses, riding carts or tractors to till or carry loads of produce, to attend to small electrical or mechanical faults of his pump sets and many more. But a city bred child gets no opportunity to learn such skills from the immediate environment as the child is confined to the four walls of a flat placed at a height that even birds fear to fly.
Now the central government seems to be in favor of laws that would seek extension of the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act that came into effect in 2009, to Pre-schools too. This thinking has started in 2011 itself and the highest body in taking decisions on school education, CABE had constituted a drafting committee for this purpose.
It is feared that such a move would legitimate an unhealthy practice being practiced by parents and other stake holders. The question at what age children should start formal schooling is debated upon for decades and the academicians are in favor of increasing the school entry level age to 6 or 7 from the existing 5. There is overwhelming evidence proving that late schooling is the best option. The schools in Sweden and Finland admit kids only when they turn 7 and the academic standards and the achievements in such children are found to be quite high.
In fact the present system has got a British legacy, as the English system was introduced in 1870 in England, to get women back into work rather than on the basis of any educational benefit to kids.
Pre-schooling not only robs our kids of their precious childhood but damages their psyche much. The efforts taken to build a knowledge based society are laudable; but a society of healthy individuals is preferable. Increasing violence and crime and the mushrooming life style diseases have got their origin in children’s childhood. In fact there must be no schools at all for any kid who has not attained the age 7. Today’s homes are isolated but the kids are learning fast to get connected with the outside world of knowledge and a variety of games thanks to the internet reach. As parents are also educated the kids won’t remain empty handed till they start attending the school. What would happen is learning without any burden. Such learning would be ideal as it is happening in the familiar environment of the child.
A society that wants healthy and happy citizens must spend time and money on researches that would throw more light on the functioning of its educational systems. Bringing in kids into schools at an age when they have to be playing is simply cruel. Kids learn faster when they are allowed to play and experiment on their own instead academically directed instructional methods. Let the kids be at homes as long as they are kids. No need to send the toddlers to schools with any more laws.
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