Among other factors, class-related disadvantage and its correlates call for a variety of remedial measures.
Streamlining and simplifying curricular demands at the primary stage of education would worry some people who see ambitious attempts, even if not successful, as good ways to perform better. We are not against anyone trying to do more than what is required from compulsory school curriculum. If intelligently planned, a reduction of curricular load could still leave open the opportunity for better performing students to try more, particularly at home, perhaps with guidance from teachers. What is argued here is that for normal primary education, “home tasks” should be completely unnecessary (but supplementary study at home would not, of course, be “banned” for those who would want to do more). In particular, the students’ success at examinations and school tests should not have to rely on what they have to do at home, outside the school.
This is the way Europe and America have educated their children in primary schools when they were at the same stage of educational development as India is today, and this is how they still do it across the world right now to make basic school education accessible to all, even though the ability of the families themselves to help young children with home work has grown as the overall population has become more and more literate. Home tasks for schoolchildren begin at various ages across the world, but hardly ever at the very basic stages of early primary education, where the concentration has to be on reading, writing and simple arithmetic. This is where the particular issue of curricular overload in early primary education in India is critically important.
This is the way Europe and America have educated their children in primary schools when they were at the same stage of educational development as India is today, and this is how they still do it across the world right now to make basic school education accessible to all, even though the ability of the families themselves to help young children with home work has grown as the overall population has become more and more literate. Home tasks for schoolchildren begin at various ages across the world, but hardly ever at the very basic stages of early primary education, where the concentration has to be on reading, writing and simple arithmetic. This is where the particular issue of curricular overload in early primary education in India is critically important.
