A study has found that children who start schooling early can barely meet the minimum amount of sleep required. Amol Arora tells you how there is a need to rethink the hours

There is one common question every one of us would have asked someone or wondered about at some point in our lives — “Why do schools start early?” Watching the parents standing at the bus stop to send off their little kids to schools at wee hours of winters when the whole world is sleeping, is a merciless sight. Most of us couldn't have waited for the day when the school life would end so that there would be no compulsion ofwaking up at unearthly hours. 

A study published in the 2017 journal Sleep Health revealed that children who start schooling before 8:30 am can barely meet the minimum amount of sleep required for their bodies that is eight-10 hours. This lack of sleep especially during the smoggy winter mornings can result in sulkiness among the children.  Moreover, the concept of early morning school hours put more pressure on their sleep process.

Therefore, there is a need to reconsider the school timings that can accustom with the lifestyle of the children who have working parents. After all, it becomes a struggle for them to find reliable childcare centres for their kids before and after school so they can align the school day and their regular day at work. While schools in 45 states of the USA have started showing empathy towards the kids by already pushing their start times back to fall in line with the biological clock of the students, the situation in India is a little bit conflicting.

With kids coming home early, they are exposed to unlimited screen-time options in the absence of their working parents and getting transported to multiple coaching institutes throughout the rest of the day. This puts their physical health at risk. However, if the schools extend their ending time as the office working hours, it will only result in limiting the hours in a day for the kids to focus on both their studies and physical activities. By the end of the day, they will only get drained tremendously.

Changing a school’s start time involves a wide array of people — parents, teachers, students, principals, school boards, among others. The impact is felt at a community level. In our country, the concept of reorienting the school hours to align it with the realities of the working parents has not yet been acknowledged by school authorities in many states.  Moreover, they also want to reach home by the time their children are.

Urban city planners favour early school timings because they believe that if the hours clash with the office end-timings, there will be more chaos on the road. They also feel that since the buildings heat up during the peak hour of the day, which is around 3 pm, children should reach home before that. Unfortunately, such reasons still not justify in putting either primary pupils or teenagers through such outrageous timings.That said, it is neither a good idea to start early and nor it is a better solution to end the school hours aligning with the adult working hours.

While the parents are constantly struggling to balance their busy work routine with their children’s school schedule, school authorities in India must also start working towards plugging this gap and be more empathetic towards the kids and the teenagers.

While it is evident that moving the bell time can be one major step in the bigger picture to ensure that the kids get an ample amount of sleep they need. It will not increase the hours in a day. The deal-breaker is to reap maximum advantage of the after-school hours. Schools should introduce full-day child-centered curriculum where apart from imparting quality education to students, they can also facilitate co-curricular activities. This can make the after-school hours more productive and well-managed. The extended school hours will not only give parents freedom from multiple pick-ups and drops throughout the day but will conveniently match the office timings of parents. This approach to education will eventually let the working parents spend quality time with their children during the evening.

The writer is Vice Chairman & Managing Director, Shemford Group of Futuristic Schools