Full day school; fuller life for children
Prabhakar Timble
The demand for full day school education as a critical infrastructure requirement should be actually made by educationists and teachers. At present, the proposal is mooted by the government. It is a tragedy that the trigger is pulled by the educationists to shoot it down.
Parents and learners would welcome the move only if the confidence building measures are taken up by the teachers and educationally inclined managements. If these two camps project themselves as unprepared and as victims, the move would definitely meet opposition.
I perceive the teacher as the main stumbling block to the goal of a full time school. Many of them have entered the profession because of long vacations and the evening off. For others it is easy life without accountability for results. For some, it is a part-time assignment with full time opportunity for tuitions and micro businesses. For very few, it is commitment and joy forever. It is because of these few that we find young achievers in art, music, sports, theatre and science. It is these few children who salute and respect those few gurus.
Many teachers and school managements do not know what is to be done with children if they are full day on the school campus. A school is today reduced to a location to teach the prescribed syllabus of the Board of Education. Little do we realise that the little syllabus can be mastered even through an open school learning mode. The formal school mechanism has higher objectives to achieve. It is a laboratory for children to grow into adults. The teacher needs to move away from being a mere tutor. These higher goals are sacrificed and mercilessly butchered at the altar of grades and marks.
A laundry list of items covering playground, library, toilets, common room and canteen though required should not come in the way of a full day school. In fact, absence of these basic facilities does not justify even part-time and half-day schooling. I have also seen the argument of denial of access to education to rural children being put forth to oppose the full day school. To my mind, the rural child will learn and flower better in a full day school environment. It would be a venue wherein differently placed learners can learn at their own pace in a group environment. It would throw opportunities to learn crafts and channelize creative energies of rural children. Group learning, group living and group playing would open the locked door of pluralistic learning and enrichment.
In a full day setting, the school turns into a community offering scope for natural learning by the child. What happens in a school can make or break a child’s life. A teacher has the enviable opportunity of shaping the formative years of a child so as to make the child’s life, a wonderful journey. We need to realise that everything in this world, including the values we teach have an expiry date. Hence, continuous learning and training of teachers is imperative. The main task of the teacher earlier was to provide information and make the child to retain, recall and repeat the same. Today, there is explosion of knowledge at different locations, channels and sites. Along with the full day school, we badly require proper recruitment and training of teachers. Both these are in a state of crisis today.
I feel the government will procrastinate on the issue of full day school. Most likely, the implementation would be put off for another year. I would argue to make a beginning by making the full day school operational for teachers from the fresh academic year. Let the teachers get acclimatised first. I am confident that the children will adopt the full day schooling much faster.
There are schools which have adequate physical facilities. These remain unutilised, underutilised and idle since the children and teachers desert the campus converting it to the silence of the graveyard for the major part of the day. Embrace the full day school norm. There is no need to wait for a circular from the Directorate of Education, if you find in full day school gold for your children.
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What’s rocking Goa’s boat?
Lyndon Alves
Goa, inspite of having one of the smallest stretches of the country’s vast 5000 km plus coastline, has still managed to achieve the highest brand value and popularity, for its beaches and beach tourism both domestic and internationally.
It’s a shame though, that with over 40 world class beach resorts and the same number of weekly charter flight arrivals into the state, we hugely lack behind in infrastructure for watersports and water based tourism. Neighbouring competition like Thailand, where tourism started booming around the same time as Goa, today boast of over a dozen world class marinas, whilst we still do not have a single tourist jetty other than the ones in Panjim that cater mainly to the low end dance cruises and casino boats. It is shameful that the controversial casino boats seem to have been able to generate much more logistic support from the authorities than the local tourist boat operators!
India’s luxury market has been booming and boat ownership is an integral part of this phenomenon. One walk past the Gateway of India,would showcase a fair idea of the way boating has taken shape in our country from the sheer number of boats, cruisers and luxury yacht’s parked in the not too clean waters of the Mumbai harbour.. Waters that can barely be used for leisure purposes.
Goa should ideally be taking advantage of this growth and be the lead in bringing this high-end luxury boating market closer to our shores, being barely 200 nautical miles and a happy day cruise away from the waters of Bombay and Cochin.
Whilst a lot of planning, thinking and tall statements have been made by the authorities in the recent past, owning a boat in Goa still has its challenges, there does not even exist the basic infrastructure to enable refuelling or water supply. Unfortunately boats in Goa, still have to be fuelled up, using ‘jerry cans’ that eventually lead to spilling of fuel and the polluting of our clean waters!
Add to this, the lack of enterprise and cooperation from the authorities that have led to entrepreneurs refraining from participating in our water tourism, from the mere inability of being able to even register a boat, for reasons best known to the authorities that be. During the tenure of the last COP (Captain of Ports) internationally certified luxury yachts were registered as barges, something that would shock boating aficionados world-wide!
A couple of years back Goa hosted its first boat show and boat sales started booming in the state, a couple of years later, we have 2 annual boat shows and a lower sale of boats!
Let’s not keep dreaming of a better tomorrow without doing something about it today! Its good that finally some sense prevailed and one can today see the start of some good on our waters, starting from the removal of the infamous ‘River Princess’ even after over 10 years of damage to the coastline and the locals of the area who thrive on beach and water tourism!
Let’s hope that we see an end to this menace and the start of a sincere effort to make our state the country’s boating capital and take water tourism and boating to its logical positioning on this beautiful coastline we have been blessed with!!
