Overlooked Pros and Cons:

JIWAN RAI

Starting school early may seem like a good strategy—after all, "the early bird catches the worm," right? So why even entertain a counter-perspective? Still, a few points deserve public discussion. And though "public discussion in a muted society" may seem to be an oxymoron, isn't life itself often oxymoronic?

Schools in Gangtok started at 8 a.m. today. The reason? To decongest traffic for office-goers. How profound! It almost implies that students commuting during the rush hour have become a nuisance, and moving their schedule up is the best way to clear the roads for the rest of society. When an administrative initiative has such a shallow rationale, we can only imagine the depth of vision and commitment to education behind it. While some teachers are happy about the decision, many of their reasons are laughably selfish. They claim it will give them ample time for official work, socializing, and personal tasks. While we can’t begrudge them these blessings, such reasons should not validate the administrative decision.

In many advanced countries, schools also start early, but their reasoning isn’t as hopelessly shortsighted as ours. Their early starts are not about improving bureaucrats’ commutes. We need to consider the following points:

When our children return home by 2 or 2:30, how will they occupy themselves gainfully? Gangtok is largely made up of employees and businesspeople, meaning that households are generally parentless in the afternoon. Have we thought about the misalignment between work and school schedules? This decision seems to have blindly ignored factors such as the productive use of time and children’s safety. Time is precious for everyone, especially young people. These mid-afternoon hours from 2 to 4 can’t simply be wasted for the sake of easing traffic for society. Screen time—a worsening disaster for young people—will likely increase, with students now having two extra hours to indulge in it.

In the advanced world, there are ample outdoor activities and needed facilities for children to participate in. Parents can mostly afford to send their children to music, sports, or non-scholastic classes. The same cannot be said for children in Gangtok. This creates an opportunity to initiate after-school clubs. However, appointing any Tom, Dick, or Harry with zero skills, experience, expertise, or commitment to run these clubs could be counterproductive. A simple notification from our Education Department will not suffice, either.

To those who claim that early hours are “peak cognitive hours” when children are more alert and focused, I ask: “How can a child stay alert and focused on a bitterly cold winter morning?” In advanced countries, children have access to quality winter clothing, travel in heated cars, and sit in climate-controlled classrooms. In Gangtok, however, children walk to school in freezing winter weather, sit in cemented classrooms with broken windows, and endure cold drafts blowing through the typical third-world facilities. Over 90 percent of classrooms are designed in a way that sunlight rarely, if ever, reaches inside. If children can manage to stay alert and focused in these conditions, they must truly have an extraordinary capacity to excel in life!

Naturally speaking, early starts challenge young people due to their biological clocks. Parents need to be extra vigilant to ensure that their children get to bed by 9 p.m. at the latest. If sleep schedules aren’t properly monitored, children may face sleep deprivation, reduced motivation to study, and, over time, even mental health issues.

Starting the day early has its benefits—it sets a positive momentum, provides a sense of early accomplishment, and maximizes mental freshness. It instils in us the sense of punctuality and work ethic and helps us make the most of daylight. However, our decision doesn’t seem to have been inspired by these considerations. We have become so obsessed with our congested traffic that we are unable to think beyond it - which is actually a problem caused by unplanned construction, illegal encroachment, corruption, VIP culture, and poor traffic and civic sense. If this decision had been made for academic or child development reasons, it would at least have sounded better and less cruel. If it were preceded by preparation—such as winterproofing classrooms and planning after-school clubs and extracurriculars—our Education Department would have looked smart. But we do not get an administration better than we deserve.

Let me remind our quick decision-makers—or perhaps I should call them armchair experts—that nearly 80-90 percent of Gangtok’s schoolchildren commute on foot. Sending them to school early has little effect on rush-hour traffic. Our traffic management experts should channel the same enthusiasm and urgency into implementing other traffic improvement measures suggested in a recent survey. Apart from the soft targets, there are tougher targets as well, and hitting those would require real administrative grit. Do they have it?

“Gangtok is largely made up of employees and businesspeople, meaning that households are generally parentless in the afternoon. Have we thought about the misalignment between work and school schedules? This decision seems to have blindly ignored factors such as the productive use of time and children’s safety. Time is precious for everyone, especially young people. These mid-afternoon hours from 2 to 4 can’t simply be wasted for the sake of easing traffic for society. Screen time—a worsening disaster for young people—will likely increase, with students now having two extra hours to indulge in it.”

(Views are personal. Email: jiwanr@gmail.com)