Improving the Lives of School Children – II

A central question that has a huge impact on the lives of young children is of age. What age should formal schooling begin and at what age may the child be sent to a preschool/kindergarten and for how many years?  Different practices prevail in different countries as regards age and preschooling and this is appropriate since social conditions within homes and the resources available to schools vary from country to country.

The question that needs to be answered first is - Is it a good idea for government to regulate questions related to age of school going children and the years they may spend in preschools prior to entering class I?

As regards government run schools, the government does have to come up with a policy for the same. However, private schools could be left to make their own choice. That could work well in the ideal case since then each school can come up with a policy that is best suited to the area within the country it operates and the kinds of children it has to cater too. However, it does not work that way. Only a few private institutions base their decision on what is best for the child. They primarily decide on what is best for their profits. Therefore it is imperative that governments come up with a broad policy that answers this question for all schools within their country.

It may be pointed that the tender years between birth and five are the foundation on which a whole life is built. A building built on a strong foundation may be improved from the top later with right effort but one on weak foundations can never ever be improved later. Therefore utmost care and thought needs to given to the question raised in this note after due deliberation and wide discussion. The government must then come with a policy for the same as a mandatory requirement for all schools within the country. It always helps to have a sound initial proposal to begin such deliberations and here the author shall put forward his idea based on forty years of experience as an educator in different parts of the world. It is this:

1. A child who is at least four years old on the first of July of a year and no older than five may be admitted to a preschool/kindergarten class. The first of July is chosen because it is the mid-point of the year and because in most countries a school academic session begins around then. Trying to impose learning on a child that is younger than four is more likely to stunt a child emotionally as well as intellectually rather than make the child a better human.

2. A child who is five years or older and who has not yet begun formal schooling must be admitted in Class I of school (that usually goes up to 12 years of school education up to class 12) irrespective of the fact that the child has done or not done prior preschool and kindergarten.

Implications:  The implications of the present proposal are

1. That child under four shall not be admitted to enter any preschool and shall grow in the care of his parents at home (or partly in a crèche in some unavoidable cases)

2. That preschool shall be no more than one year

3. That class one studies will begin for a child between the age of five and six if child is admitted in school in time.

Private schools that have organized schooling as two or three years of preschool and make a good profit out of that shall oppose vehemently. However, they need to be told that children in many schools such as government schools in India do no preschool at all yet many go on to do better in high school, university and life than others who may have done two or three years of preschool. This author began schooling directly in class one at the age of five and then went on to top in the best universities of the country and the world and became a recognized scientist later in life with several well cited publications in international scientific journals that any interested reader can view through a google search on google scholar citations ( link is here).

The second implication of the present proposal is that after 12 years of schooling an average child would enter university between the ages of 17 and eighteen i.e. when he would be an adult or becomes one during the very first year of his university education i.e an age when a human is mature enough and ready to make good use of the greater freedom that a university environment provides. This is completely appropriate, neither too late, nor too early in the view of this author.