A newspaper headline today read "Three cheers for freedom from homework". Really? Three cheers? As if terminating board exams was not enough, CBSE affiliated schools in Bangalore have now scraped homework too. The kids are happy. Of course. But according to the news report, even parents feel that homework leads to no real learning, as it is done by either siblings or parents.
This is absurd! Parents realise that the problem lies not in the homework but in that it is done by them, and not by the child (most of the time). So is it their burden they wish to reduce or the student's? Some say that it is a repetition of the classwork. If it is, then the solution is not to scrape homework completely, the quality of homework given should be enhanced. For instance - give the student something to think about after class, something to develop new ideas, something that helps apply the knowledge learnt in class.
How relaxed do we want our kids to be, anyway? If school is so relaxed, how will they survive in college and life beyond?
