STUDENTS in Pakistan, unfortunately, do not get many opportunities to tap the creative part of their minds. The culprit is the mountain pile of homework assigned to them by the teachers. Students work like robots from dawn to dusk, and yet they fail to hit the mark. The schools leave the task of preparing the students to the parents who then send them to various ‘academies’ for preparation.

There is no exception. Public schools, private schools, elite schools … they all are in it together. All of them drop truckloads of homework on the students for whom it is as bad as bonded labour.

In 1930, the American Child Health Association declared homework as a child labour. Many a study corroborates that there is no tangible link between homework and academic progress.

Being a teacher with an experience of 20 years at public and private schools, I have observed that assigning homework is meant to shirk hard work to educate young minds. At parent-teacher meetings, the teachers unscrupulously complain to the parents about negligence on the part of the parents and the students for not doing homework and learning the lessons at home. Even parents are asked to make students’ handwriting legible. The unaccomplished homework and its punishment actually de-motivate the students. Having said that, school administrations are equally to blame as teachers, after all, have to pander to their whim and fancy.

Further, what is the justification of burdening the students with home tasks during vacations when major chunk of the tasks has not been covered at school? Naturally, the students and their parents would gravitate towards the ‘academies’ for the untaught contents. Behaving unprofessionally, some teachers assign difficult portions of the lesson and related exercises as homework. This is done either to force the students to join their own ‘academies’, or to hide their incompetence.

The yardstick for the success of a teacher and his teaching method stipulates that students should not feel the need to join any academy. The same metric holds true of a successful school or college that its students rely on it exclusively.

It is only obvious that not all parents are educated, or at least educated enough to help their children in their homework. Moreover, parents should not be coerced into sending their children to ‘academies’ as they already pay hefty school fee.

Assigning and doing homework creates a routine which is the worst deadener of creativity. Research shows that homework is a primary source of stress, especially for students but generally for parents as well. The sooner it is dispensed with, the better.

The Iranian documentary movie Homework (1989) is an elegy on the death of childhood innocence among the students wrought by undone homework and the consequent fear of getting punished. It is a must-watch for all students, teachers and even school administrators.

The teaching profession is already losing its shine, and, to restore it, the teachers will have to shun shoddy tactics that mar the sanctity of the profession.

M. Nadeem Nadir
Kasur

Published in Dawn, August 29th, 2021