Make early education interesting

Zafar Alam Bhuiyan:  Tahiti, my 6-year-old daughter, doesn’t want to go to school regularly. She doesn’t like her school at all. She says her teacher doesn’t love her very much. She has to read 11 books being a student of nursery. The situation is alarming. It is ridiculous that the kindergartens want to teach the students everything to fulfil the demand of the conscious (!) guardians. Parents want their children to read more and more from the very beginning of their educational life.

Tahiti is learning English, Arabic and other difficult subjects when she even doesn’t speak her mother tongue clearly. She is learning Arabic translation. What is the use of Arabic language in the nursery class? Why is she asked to write ‘537’ in Roman figures in her exam? I asked the principal of her school. He replied that it was the demand of the guardians. Parents are much more worried about their children’s education than the school authorities.

Today’s mothers are struggling madly to admit their kids in good schools. Being a teacher I can’t do this, though some of my colleagues are doing the same. I don’t want my daughter to be a specialist in everything before learning the basics. The teachers should teach the kids in an interesting way. If they do so, children will go to school willingly.

I don’t want to weigh down my daughter with more than 22 books right now. I want to see her happy while going school.

(Zafar Alam Bhuiyan, Shanto-Mariam University of Creative Technology, Dhaka)