When schooldays fall from 5 to 3.5 Yay or Nay?

The Rahhal initiative, yesterday came out with an announcement that introduced the reduction of schooldays from 5 to 3.5 for all the 11th and 12th-graders at The Indian High School in Dubai. The aforementioned initiative falls under the Knowledge and Human Development Authority’s Rahhal project.

Other interested private schools in Dubai can also implement the same in their schools after seeking approval from the KHDA.

Earlier, Rahhal project had launched modern methods of studies including part-time, virtual and homeschooling. According to the Rahhal initiative the students will now have half of Wednesdays and the entire Thursdays every week to themselves, off from school.

But this is not without precautions to thwart students from going astray from academics. Parents or the institution that these students attend during these days are to provide attendance records and progress to the school.

With the new policy, comes mixed reactions – relief and dilemma.

The sigh of relief

As for students, the new initiative is a sigh of relief as the extra days, off-campus is going to provide them with added time to pursue other activities of interest. After all, all work and no play makes Jack a dull boy! The CEO of The Indian High School, Ashok Kumar draws out the number of days as ‘3.5 + 1.5 = 6’, which means 3.5 days are academic days and 1.5 are non-academic. He pointed out that the CBSE board requires 30 hours of studies and this can be achieved in 3.5 days by rescheduling the daily timing for the 11th and 12th-graders as starting at 7:30am and ending at 3:30pm.

This brings with it great ease to the high-grade students who are continuously subjected to academics for 5 days in a week sparing little or no time to catch up with other non-academic activities or pursuing their hobbies. The added days off-campus will help rekindle their long-forgotten hobbies or interests that got buried under the weight of academics. It is a great step towards sparking up creativity in students as they are left free to decide what they must do these days. Many companies around the world have long been adhering to offering more off days to their employees to boost their creativity. Creativity is a potential seedling that will not sprout in chaos and haste, and haste makes waste. Creativity seeks space and time to sprout and grow. The Rahhal initiative is aligned with the same thought hoping to mould a consummate youth.

The parental dilemma

With more days off-campus many parents seem to admit that it does cause them to worry as it is also upon them now to ensure that their children are making the best use of time. But the authorities themselves have designed the new concept in such a way so as to make sure that the result doesn’t come the other way around. The Rahhal initiative insists that attendance records and progress be provided to the school by parents or the institution they are attending. And that closes all doors for any escapades by students.

In fact, the high-grade students are themselves responsible and aware of the importance of their time. Many students aim to utilize this time to work better for their board exams while others are happy that they can finally find time to pursue their non-academic interests and hobbies such as painting, music, dance, sports etc. After all, these are also equally important in nurturing a complete citizen. Apart from these, those students aiming to crack other competitive exams that demand more effort and time from them find this a true blessing. They can now concentrate well on their preparation for such exams as well.

With so much said, parents are left with hardly anything to worry. They only have to make sure that the kids are not whiling away their time and there is an easy-going routine followed on these days as well. Parents are to ensure their child’s performance on these days and inform the school of the same. The monthly open day will enable parents and teachers to discuss the child’s progress and act accordingly.

Moreover, parents need to realize that these days should also serve to add more quality time spent with the whole family – off gadgets, off academics and off anything at all. Students could enjoy a beautiful evening with their friends or family on the weekends other than dedicating these days as well to catch up with the syllabus. This will make them more social in the real world than the virtual world, which is also a need of the hour with too much time spent in the virtual world.

After all, the falling of the apple from the tree that paved the way to the discovery of Gravity by Newton happened because he was sitting under a tree and not in a classroom!