Homework and the new school year

And so the new school year begins in earnest today, with the whole of the country’s children now heading into the hallowed halls of knowledge for another year of education, some with a degree of trepidation, others with excitement and others still with anticipation for what lies in store.

There has been an awful lot of talk about how children will get back and forth from school, and perhaps not enough talk about what they are doing during their time there. And, it seems, this has overshadowed what the real issue at stake is: ensuring our children have the best education possible so that they — and the country in turn — can have the best future possible ahead of them.

Along such lines, it is sincerely hoped that the country’s educators will take on board the new homework guidelines issued by the education ministry earlier this year; guidelines that have drastically reduced the amount of time school kids are burdened with homework: to free kids from excessive after school work so as to engage in other pursuits, whatever those may be.

As from this scholastic year, the amount of time children will be expected to be hitting the books after school hours should be slashed considerably – to maximums of half an hour a day for primary school children, one hour for middle school children and a maximum of eight hours a week for

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secondary school children.

The idea is to give today’s children, who are, generally speaking, already hardpressed with busy schedules, more time to breathe, to take part in more sports, social and cultural activities, to play, spend quality time with their families and to simply rest… in short, more time to be kids. With the mountains of homework habitually force-fed to children, schooling becomes practically a full-time job for many youngsters. This should not be the case; there will be time enough for that for the rest of their lives.

Let’s face it, kids these days have a lot on their plates and they could very well do without the damaging side-effects that are, according to the ministry’s research, caused by homework. These include stress, burning the midnight oil working on assignments, tiredness and lack of sleep, anxiety, and extra pressure.

Children, under normal circumstances, should have no business experiencing such problems, but extensive research and evidence on both the local and international levels have shown that these are the very real effects of excessive homework.

Findings by the World Health Organisation in 2016 revealed that Maltese 11, 13 and 15year-olds are definitely feeling the strain of homework, and that they, on average, are given twice the amount of homework as their European peers.

This comes on top of other stresses they identified, including: exam stress, the need to study obligatory subjects; and having to choose subjects from as early on as in Form 3. Coupled with the reduced homework time guidelines is another stress-busting initiative aimed for government schools as from next year: the elimination of mid-year exams, which will be replaced by an assessment system – giving children an extra 50 hours of classroom time. The new homework guidelines, while not eliminating homework altogether, offer a sense of balance between educational needs and the other very real needs of individual children.

Not all parents, however, are in agreement. There are many of the opinion that what was good for them will sure as well be good for their children.

Indeed, many are the parents out there who have recoiled in horror at the thought of a lighter afternoon load for their children. But the fact of the matter is that there is so much more to a child’s education than hitting the books, the development of emotional intelligence, many would argue, is just as important as hard schooling.

The ministry’s guidelines seek a balance between the two, but it will be up to parents to fill that afternoon gap with valuable quality time.