A typical day of a standard four pupil in cities, such as Dar es salaam, is a nightmare. The pupil’s normal day starts around 5 a.m, wakes up after several attempts—and mostly after being scolded several times by parents or house help. They take a shower and feed so quickly that the school bus will find them ready. They are so stressed, cannot even appreciate the good taste of a luxurious middle-class breakfast, and sometimes get abdominal upset and vomit. They are so scared to face the wrath of a school day. This will be followed by a rough ride in a school bus, sweeping streets and corners to pick other stressed and sleepy pupils.
At school, they undergo a continuous academic drill until around sunset, and drive back home with a heavy backpack equal to their weight with several homework pages to work on before the end of the day. This will take several hours to finish before going to bed, and the circle continues, come rain, come sun—not sparing the weekends and public holidays. The ultimate goal of this drill is to get good grades in standard four national examinations, but if we take time to ask ourselves: what are the benefits of good grades in standard four national examinations? Are they worthy of the drill? Is it because children of today need more learning hours to understand the subjects? Do pupils benefit from those grades? Contrary, the negative consequences of the drills on their mental health and wellbeing may outweigh the benefit of the grades!
I am tempted to believe that this is the result of schools focusing on higher ranking, and to further attract grades-oriented parents to enroll their children. Unknowingly, this unrealistic expectation of parents and school ambitions, these children are turned into billboards and cash cows! Pupils are less likely to benefit from this arrangement, not even improving their grades. Learning always follows the rule of diminishing return, meaning that when learning sessions are long with heavy information beyond the capacity of a child, the quality of learning drops with no further retention of learned materials. Unfortunately, academic demand that exceeds the pupils’ ability to cope is a higher risk for academic stress which is detrimental to mental health and wellbeing of pupils.
Academic stress is common among school age children and is among the common causes of clinical consultations. However, it is rarely identified because of the non-specific nature of accompanied signs and symptoms. These include but are not limited to chronic fatigue, loss of appetite, sleeping disorders, constant fear, chronic abdominal pain, recurrent vomiting, tight chest, shortness of breath, muscle weakness, social withdrawal, poor concentration, frequent aggression, recurrent headache, and increasingly defiant behaviors. It happens more frequently that medics run a lot of invasive laboratory tests but end up with no specific pathological findings, which poses more stress to concerned parents and children. Sometimes practitioners are tempted to prescribe unnecessary and unjustifiable medicines. If academic stress is not well addressed, it may lead to other costly consequences such as decreased motivation, negative attitude towards school, reduced academic performance, increased risk of dropout, and indulging into abusive drugs.
Children can learn, grow, pass their exams, and attain their full potential without necessarily going through this torture. Academic grades in primary school contribute a small part of long-term success; it isn’t worth trading everything for them. We need to look beyond school grades; prioritize learning, positive school experiences, and make schools the spark of happiness, socialization, innovation, and inquisitiveness. Investing in the quality of learning, and effective teaching methods will bear more fruits than increasing the hours spent on learning.
Parents who are accomplices in this practice need to understand that children’s success should be holistic; consisting of intelligence, innovation, good character, civic responsibilities, socially engaging, and collaborative. It is better late than never; education experts and policy makers should rescue the sinking boat by refining policies and guidelines regarding time for active learning, homework, playing, and explorations based on the developmental age of school children.
