Bengaluru: Parents, educators against changing school timings to ease traffic woes
The dept of school education has called for a meeting on October 5 to explore the possibility of changing school timings to ease Bengaluru's notorious traffic jams. But is that the answer?
In response to a suggestion from the Karnataka high court to explore reworking school timings to decongest Bengaluru’s roads, the department of school education and literacy has called for a meeting of all stakeholders on Thursday (October 5).
The high court has suggested that advancing the school working hours may mitigate the problem to some extent.
However, the main stakeholders – parents, school managements, teachers and support staff, and transporters – strongly feel that advancing the school timings in the morning by an hour or even half an hour will create its own set of problems. And, most importantly, it will have a negative impact on the physical and mental well-being of children.
Some of the drawbacks of this move are that the children will suffer from sleep deprivation, malnutrition (the children will not be able to have breakfast at such an early hour), eating disorders, attention deficit, and lack of interest in studies.
The parents have to wake up earlier than usual which will add to their stress. Most teachers and support staff are also parents of school-going children, and they will have to not only get their children to school but also reach their workplace earlier.
The stakeholders felt that this move will end up being counter-productive for everyone concerned. Instead, they proposed policy changes by getting traffic cops at work by 7 am to direct traffic at major junctions near schools, reduce private transport on the roads by making students travel by school or public transport, and by increasing the frequency of BMTC and metro trains.
The Associated Management of Schools in Karnataka (KAMS) has listed out the practical problems parents and teachers wil face by rescheduling school hours.