Tuesday January 6, 2009

Too many long school breaks

THE new school year begins this week after a long seven-week end-of-year school holidays. Nonetheless, in just three weeks’ time, most schools will have yet another long break for Chinese New Year.

It is the norm now for schools to apply for extended festive holidays. A normal two-day public holiday for Chinese New Year or Hari Raya Aidilfitri, for example, can be turned into a nine-day break.

The break begins on a Saturday and lasts till the Sunday of the following week. These additional holidays are to be replaced by other Saturdays made into school days.

It is understandable that some boarding schools may require these long breaks as their students come from different states in the country.

They need the time to travel to and from home for the festivals. But the majority of our schools are normal, non-boarding schools in towns and in the suburbs. For these schools, their students are living in town and its vicinity. Why the need for such long breaks?

It is not that we do not want our schools to celebrate and to take breaks. But, too many of these breaks will disrupt the study atmosphere and learning momentum in schools.

As it is, the school calendar already prescribes two major term breaks and two minor mid-term breaks.

If we are to add the two festive breaks mentioned above, we would have six school breaks in one school year for the normal, non-boarding schools in towns and in the suburbs. And this has not even taken into count other shorter breaks that the schools have during the school terms.

Saturday replacement classes are also a point of contention.

More often than not, schools use these Saturdays for educational activities rather than actual teaching and learning classes.

Even if normal lessons are scheduled, they are done in shortened periods or in reduced times. Saturdays are faithfully kept as half-days and this is particularly true for schools that need to replace both their morning and afternoon sessions on the same Saturday.

Moreover, teachers and students tend to switch-off mentally and physically on Saturdays. Consciously or unconsciously, we have been conditioned for a five-day working week.

Some school bus drivers are not running those days.

As such, Saturday schools always record a high absenteeism rate.

Another negative effect of official long breaks is that the not-so-disciplined students - and there are many of them - tend to take “unofficial” breaks.

If a public holiday falls on Thursday, these students will not go to school on Friday.

If the public holiday is on a Tuesday, they may not appear on Monday.

I believe this students’ behaviour and attitude have directly or indirectly contributed to the woes of disciplinary problems in schools.

Too many long school breaks may also force teachers to engage in a fast-track approach to finish their subject syllabus in time for examinations.

This is bad for the average students and may also explain partly the need for outside tuitions for many students.

It’s time that the Education Ministry and school authorities seriously rethink the need to have extended festive holidays for normal, non-residential schools in towns and in the suburbs.

Our children need more learning time in school!

LIONG KAM CHONG,
Seremban.

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