SCHOOL TIME

 SCHOOL TIME:

                                                                   The first batch of school children would leave at 8am from our next door neighbors duplex house. One is 8 yrs and the other 6 years. Their father works at Mumbai in a paint factory and comes once or twice in a year. Mother takes care of the growing children from morning till they go to bed. Very active brothers but naughty. School bags are quite heavy for their tender age hence their mother would carry both the bags to school which is half a kilometers from their house. I was curious to know the weight of each bag but would guess it will be eight kilogram both combined. Evening they go near the Sai temple and play till 5pm when the tuition master comes.

                                         The other side of our house is another group of grown up pampered children escorted by their mothers. They would come one by one without the school bags. Their fathers are absconding from their respective family. Some work at Bhadak, Bhabanipatna, Balasore, Bangalore and others at Jajpur.Exactly at 9am three of the ladies with night gown would come down with the heavy bags and stand near the apartment gate. Ladies would go on gossip mode for half an hour or so when the Econ school bus would come at high speed and come to a screeching halt. The children have not been taught by their ‘maam’—‘madam’—‘school teachers’ to help their mothers. They are all 14 years and above, still then they would enter the bus without the bag like a Governor. Their mother would carry the bag and keep them inside when the driver would zoom out of the colony in tremendous speed. The morning chorus for those ladies would be over for the day. There are no in-laws or husband to look after. Most of them have become obese with more money less heads to feed.

                        Looking at the education system through our window gives an overall impression about the impact of education on the manners and attitude of the students. Never do they tell their mother not to carry the bag nor do they try to carry them inside the bus. They utter thank you uncle, thank you aunty, bye’’’’’.

                                                            Why every child should carry a bottle of water from home? With such huge tuition fees can’t the school authority provide clean drinking water to the children? The water bag culture starts from the age of three when the baby is kicked out of bed to join KG school, so that their mother can go for beauty care and watch TV serials! The toddlers have lost their childhood once they are born. Study—study and school and tuition have reduced their brains to computer’s hard disk. No self created ideas, all copied versions or copy and paste type of education system. Their Vivekananda—Gandhi---or Chanakya are the film stars and celebrities. At the evening hours the idiot box gives a lamination on their education.

                                    Every one follows a system blindly because no one is allowed to have his or her own thought process developed; lastly a Robert is produced and flies off to a distant land to earn dollars. hats the bottom line of the present education system. The uncle—aunty system will continue for how long we do not know.

                     The school bus would return at 4pm when aunties will receive them at the gate. No games no NCC, its Tuition time once again. Education institutes are most profitable and ever growing industry in India. This is a sort of mental and physical torture for the child? Is it not a child labour?

Sanjoy Kumar Satpathy