The last two years have been most traumatic and challenging for school and college students. The pandemic created havoc with each of its fatal waves. The children, who prior to 2020 yearned for holidays, were imprisoned in their homes. They were detached from their friends, teachers and schools. Their social, mental, physical and emotional wellbeing went for a toss and many faced innumerable damages to their health and education.
Children are silent victims of adults, mostly parents and teachers. Adults love to rule over young minds and throttle their freedom of expression. The political leaders, policy makers, school principals, teachers and parents love to assert their authority over the innocent beings whose ability to question anything is repressed. Youngsters hardly realise the harm done to them during their growing up years.
Their education has taken a backseat on the priority list of the government who kept the schools and colleges closed for the longest period despite having cinema halls, malls and casinos opened up after the receding of coronavirus cases. All energies, money and focus shifted to the State elections. The ruling party wanted to play safe and did not allow schools and colleges to open. The children suffered silently.
After a painful wait, the schools finally opened and hardly had the children attended a few offline classes, did the schools announce their final exams! It is sad that in most schools the students who attended online classes (with endless technological and logistic problems) were forced to take up physical /offline exams. Most students had forgotten basic writing and mathematical skills due to lack of practice for two years. Hardly any effort was made to revisit or revise to fill this gap. The exams were taken in a jiffy. Passing the school exam and being promoted to next class is a big feat in a student’s life, unmatched by any other talent or quality!
The biggest shock came when after this annual ritual of writing exams and declaring of results, most schools are yet again closed and this time due to the summer term break. This break is for two months in many schools, which will now be reopening in June (if another wave of the pandemic doesn’t hit us, God forbid). The students are still mute spectators. The parents hardly have a say in the school matters and the government is busy repairing old dilapidated temples. Who will bother to think about these youngsters, who are our future? Where was the need to give a long break after two years of school shut down due to COVID? Why couldn’t anybody either from the government policy makers or the school bodies think about arranging for extra classes to make up for the huge loss incurred during the last two years? April is not as hot as May and a few hours of extra classes in schools would have helped and benefited the students. Who would make the effort of thinking for these children who don not have a voice in the scheme of things?
Nelson Mandela said, ‘The true character of a society is revealed in how it treats its children.’ We say we value our children above all but are oblivious to their needs and problems.
