Upping the Academic Ante


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After the inconsolable demise of a promising tenth grader from GD Birla, it is imperative that we have a hard look at where we are going wrong. Several modern-day parents fail to recognize the fact that every individual has a saturation point. When a child is coerced to learn, his interest gradually declines until the point that he finds no incentive to advance himself academically.

Today’s kids have no liberty to enjoy, their leisure is being snatched away by ostentatious parents who would flaunt their child’s performance as a status symbol among their acquaintances and known ones. A study published in IOSR Journals (Sangma, Z.M et al, 2018) confirmed the assumptions. Out of a total of 954 students from classes nine and ten surveyed, 86% of the respondents blamed parental pressure as a retarder. 40% claimed that they were unable to enjoy life as a direct ramification of the disproportionate pressure on them, and 22% said that they found comfort in the harrowing walls of depression.

Some interesting conclusions obtained from the study are displayed below:

To bring a halt to more such preventable deaths, change needs to begin at home. Parents must understand that their wards are not commodities, who are branded as per their marks. Rather than raising expectations, and putting them under an obligation to perform in the top gear, it must be our initiative to commend them and encourage them to ‘learn’ further, and not ‘score’ more. I have long held that tuitions (particularly those in junior classes) do little good; it is self-learning and study that sharpens the brain.

Our childhood favorite, W.H Davies’s ‘Leisure’, is turning out to be prophetic- not just for the strained adult workforce; but also for the youngsters who find their wings clipped amidst heavy competition. It would only be fitting to quote Davies, then:

WHAT is this life if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare?

….
No time to see, in broad daylight,
Streams full of stars, like skies at night:


A poor life this if, full of care,
We have no time to stand and stare.


One response to “Upping the Academic Ante”

  1. The problem is that parents try to live their unfulfilled dreams through their children. Furthermore parents expect their children to be among the toppers to maintain their image in society. With both parents working in most of the cases they tend to forget that their child needs their presence more than their parents. A child for them is like trophy to flaunt & if the child fails to deliver accordingly he is the target of taunt.
    Sad reality. Feel for these lonely kids.

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