Why Children can’t be Children anymore!!

 

One recent morning as I started to sip my favorite cup of piping hot Kashaaya (a tea-like drink made from spices) and browsing on my ever-dependable (isn’t it true for many of us) smartphone – more on this later as I want to digress a bit to say something on this fashionable instrument that has made us, its slaves.

I say Smartphones because; with its introduction in our lives, these have made us duds; at the drop of the hat, we consult our phones that have become an inimitable and an inseparable organ of our physical self. Gone are the days when we used to have mobile phones to make phone calls, perhaps to send an odd text message called SMS, store numbers and set alarms and that’s it! These days, the cellphones a.k.a. smartphones are so smart that we can also use them to make phone calls!

Let me get back to where I digressed.

I saw advertisements from a particular company called Whitehat Jr. (WHJ); even on social media about getting our children in the age group 6-12 years, to learn coding. I was flabbergasted, to say the least.

Belonging to a behemoth of an Edutech Company, Byjus, who had been a pioneer in this sphere of activities (at best and in my opinion, a glorified tuition dispensing platform) for various age and grade levels in India, WHJ started this new thing about coding for the children. Their parent company had roped in a Bollywood superstar to get their ad campaign running, pouring billions in Indian Rupees in the process. By the way, Byjus was valued at a whopping US$10.8billion recently. Not surprised at all as we have innumerable wolves amidst us, helping such and other companies through conniving yet suave ways, for the sheep (Bakaras) amongst us to fall for.

Be that as it may, WHJ started their luring campaign, hitting out at gullible parents and children, with the information ‘if the legendary Bill Gates of Microsoft fame started writing codes at a very young age of 6 or 9 and so can your child too’. Why can’t we accept that such persons are exceptions and not the rule? This company has roped in elite sportspersons to endorse their campaign. I am concerned about the way these sportspersons who, lured by the money offered to them, can lead a whole generation astray by their simple endorsement, giving a damn about the future of children. For this company and their likes, Exceptions Must Become the Rule – to keep their cash registers sound KACHIIIING!!

While most of the countries are insisting on their children to behave, play and live their lives as children, we in India are so much behind our children to become ‘Rich and Famous’ overnight as ‘child prodigies’!

With Peer pressure being a major factor in influencing children and their parents alike, companies like WHJ and Byjus are laughing all their way to their banks or to their laptop’s banking online portals.

Why have they become Grinch in the lives of our children? Who gave them the liberty to snatch our children’s childhood and make them slaves to the idiot screens? Isn’t this harassment of the young lives who are supposed to be enjoying their childhood? 

I agree, starting a business is a freedom of every citizen but what are the associations and governing bodies for ethical advertising and other responsible groups and organisations doing about educating the public on the ills of such humbugs?

Already there is a very unhealthy competition amongst the students (and their parents/guardians alike) in cramming the stuff in their heads in the garb of knowledge and education.

Private tuitions were abhorred during my schooldays (decades ago) when only those who were a bit challenged in their studies, would resort to. These private tuitions have since evolved and we have come to accept them as a way of student life now. There has been a reversal in that only those monetarily challenged would avoid these external aids now. So much for the pressure on the students.

With the new Education Policy, Government would be doing its bit in improving the efficiency and efficacy of education going forward. What will still remain unchanged would be the way students and their parents/guardians buckle under the peer pressure and keep running the rat race!

Net result: Children have lost their childhood, Parents/Guardians can brag about their wards’ accomplishments and companies like WHJ and Byjus will continue to flourish milking from unsuspecting and gullible students and their parents/guardians.