After summer vacations schools have reopened and once again early to bed and early to rise exercise for children in every second home has begun. The routine of the school going children, which had been disturbed by their parents and grandparents during vacations, has once again begun to return to normal.
There are no more picnics and parties. All birthday activities have been curtailed and restricted to weekends. There is complete ban on TV viewing except a few cartoons or comedy shows that are permitted.
Usually schools open in the morning at 8 a.m. and continue till 1:30 p.m. To follow this timing children are expected to get up at six o'clock in the morning and be ready for their school van to come and pick them up for school. Those who are picked up early are dropped in the last. To face this unavoidable situation they have to be ready for the van at about 7:30 a.m. and come back at about 3p.m.
This exercise is common for all age groups but the worst sufferers are the children who are in the junior most classes. At the tender age of six years they get up early in the morning, prepare for school and hang a satchel on their backs with lot of weighty stuff in it before boarding the school van. When they come back it is already too late for lunch and too early for the afternoon tea or milk or juices. If they take something on the insistence of dear mama, it becomes too difficult to take dinner at about 7:30 or 8 p.m. which is the usual time to finish home work and to go to bed.
On the one hand the changed routine of the children takes away quite a lot of their energy and on the other puts them under stress because of the shortage of stationery, books and uniform for which the teachers continue to scold as long as everything has been placed in order.
The loss of energy and regular pressure of schoolbag's weight on their shoulders is a health hazard and that should be avoided as per advice of doctors. It affects development and growth of bones specially that of spinal chord. But this continues unabated, as parents seem to have little interest in paying heed to this advice. They are usually bothered about the grades their children get. The school management and the provincial government are not unaware of this health issue but they have chosen to remain unconcerned.
The sudden shortage of school uniforms in the market has created another problem for the parents. Many schools have realized the gravity of the situation and have permitted their students to attend schools in other simple clothes till such time uniforms are available on the market. But there are schools that have taken a tough stand and closed their eyes to the problems of their students and served notices on them to arrange uniform at any cost and from anywhere.
Any tailor can stitch shirts and trousers on order but the non-availability of shoes is not easy to solve. Those students who have grown in height have also changed measurement of their body parts and, therefore, shoes that are not worn out and new in shape and form have become unusable for them.
With the increase in cost of stationery and books, there is increase in tuition fees and school van fees. These uncalled for increases have put extra burden on the pockets of fixed income group parents. They are found to have cut on other expenditure to save some money to meet the fund requirement for the education of their children.
It is beginning of the academic year and many more challenges would be there for the parents to face and find out solutions. However, some thought on the weight of school bags, number of books to be carried daily, number of copies to be used daily should be rationalised. The fees structure is in need of revision and the use of uniform and the quantity of uniforms needed by a school should be its responsibility so that students/parents are not put to unnecessary hardship.
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