Schools that kill the joy of learning

All right-thinking people were appalled by such barbaric behaviour of the schools. If a school has to collect its fee, there are innumerable ways of doing so. The most common and acceptable practice is to withhold the examination result of students till all the dues are cleared. Across the world, such a practice is followed, and it is quite effective. What made these schools adopt such unconventional and unacceptable methods? Surely, they were not starving of funds or unable to run their schools because a handful of students hadn’t paid up. Schools are meant to be centres of learning and education, not places where children learn extortion tactics. Imagine the psychological impact of such behaviour on the sensitive minds. Students should look up at their schools and teachers with awe; they should look back at their alma mater with fondness and nostalgia, not with shock and horror. When children grow up, they should look back at their school days as the best part of their lives, as most of us do.

Most importantly, the schools must understand that though they need money to run their schools, education is not a business like any other. Schools are institutions where certain values are taught and upheld. A school is known not by the ranks it produces, but by the human beings it nurtures. A school management that thinks it is only running a business is unfortunately downgrading its own status. It is also depriving itself and its students of the sheer joy of education. Instead of aspiring to be front-runners, they have willingly entered the ranks of the also-rans. Indeed, what a pity!