DNA Special: Will 'mass alarm' at 4.30 am from religious sites work for students?

The Haryana government believes that getting school children up at 4 am is very important for their development and education. For this, it has decided to wake up Haryana board students early morning through 'mass alarm' from religious sites' loudspeakers.

Wake-up calls will be soon announced from temples, mosques, churches, gurdwaras and other places of worship for the next few months because of the state education department's initiative.

The Haryana government believes that this mass alarm is such a revolutionary step that the children of the state will become disciplined. But one can simply wake up early morning by putting an alarm on his/her phone or other gadgets.

Getting up early is a good habit, but it is very difficult to develop this habit. Sometimes parents also fail to get their children up early in the morning. But people who want to wake up early in the morning do it anyhow. They don't need an alarm, nor do they need loudspeakers.

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Board examinations will start in Haryana after about two months. And the state education department is assuming that the policy of mass alarm will motivate children to study. But they have forgotten that the children of today's generation studying in 11th or 12th already have mobile phones. Those who have to get up early, they will do so by simply setting up an alarm.

Haryana's education department should pay attention to extra classes in schools or the quality of education, instead of mass alarm initiatives through religious places' loudspeakers.

In 2021, a report from the Haryana School Education Project Council, which comes under the state government, stated that about 29,000 children stopped going to school. In the second report which was published in 2022, around 17,500 schoolchildren in the state have stopped going to school.

So instead of sounding the alarm through loudspeakers, the Haryana education ministry should make efforts to send these children back to school.