With changing times, parents are seen to be showing keen interest in imparting knowledge to their kids in the most unconventional fashion. Several parents, nowadays, are encouraging their children to opt for home-schooling or open schooling.
Meanwhile, the open-schoolers are more comfortable opting for such courses as schoolbags, projects, skyrocketing fees, weekly tests and peer-pressure are non-existent for them.
While such children do follow a customised curriculum, they have the freedom to choose their subjects and language out of a wider range of options. An open-schooler gets freedom to experiment, in absence of cut-throat competition.
National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS) has marked a sharp increase in number of students between the age group of 14 to 20, who are opting for open-schooling. In 2011-12, there were 1564 enrolments, while in 2012-13, already 1983 students enrolled for open school courses. The nationwide figures are even more shocking, 35,000 more students took admission in open schools this year compared to last year.
“The freedom to choose the subjects and language, is the main reason for the students to opt for open schools. Moreover, with increasing competition they are keen to choose their careers at an early-age. It is a big advantage for slow-learners, who can take exams as per their suitability,” said KL Gupta, regional director, NIOS.
The same trend has been witnessed by St Felix school. “The numbers are increasing slowly. Last year, there were 36 students as compared to 41 this year. Students opting for NIOS have either other priorities or have problems with subjects or are slow-learners,” said St. Felix teacher Shaista Vaswani.
Kamini Saxena, principal of Kalmadi High school also agreed to the trend and said, “The students opting for open schooling are different. They like to follow their own time and pace. In 2006, when we started we just had 20 students, but this year 80 students have already joined our course.”
17-year-old Neel Belvalkar, a successful musician opted for IGSCE board and left school when he was in Class V. “I always wanted to be a musician, but after school hours and homework, I could hardly find any time to do music. Thankfully, my parents understood my passion and went out of their way to help me,” he said.
15-year-old Erik Demitrius said, “I was not comfortable with the choice of subjects and language, but didn’t have the option to change it, so I was scoring very low. But with five subjects of my choice, I hope to score good marks.”
However, Erik’s father points out that it also has a negative effect. “Children tend to take things easily and are late as compared to their peers who follow conventional schooling. They should not be given a five-year-long time-frame as it curtails them from being serious. So the parents should keep a check that students are determined and focused,” said Derek Demitrius.
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