by Kalyani Kurup

Created on: October 30, 2008

In ancient civilizations, schools were perhaps not just year-round but maybe decade-round, or a score-of-years-round, or even quarter-century-round. In ancient Sparta, boys left home to join large state-run community schools at tender ages. They returned from there as responsible adults, fit to serve their motherland. Whether this has any connection to the Greek civilization having been the best of ancient civilizations, or Spartans the bravest of soldiers, is not sure. All that it establishes is that in a bygone era, education was not just year-long, but perpetual. The Indian subcontinent also had a system of education where students resided in the teachers' home for years and schooled.

In these ancient systems, the entire formative years of the child was spent inside schools or training camps. Today's year-round education cannot be compared to that. It is mainly a reorganization of time. What it effectively does is dissolve the long summer break. Instead, the system proposes continuous schooling throughout the year, dividing the big chunk of two months holidays into many small vacation periods in between. The system has a lot of support from different corners, the biggest advocate of all being NAYRE or National Association for Year-Round Education.

Those who champion the system, uphold as its benefits, the following features:

1. In the conventional system, when children return after the lengthy holidays, they have often forgotten what was taught before. As such a lot of time is wasted in review and recap of earlier lessons.

2. Consistent work helps children in honing their skills better.

3. The interspersed holidays, that year-long schooling provides, has the potential to keep the students and teachers better refreshed and steadier.

4. Schools with shortage of classroom space benefits by the system. They can avoid double sessions and thus extended school days.

5. Study and holiday schedules become flexible under the system and are better suited to be synchronized with working parents' schedules. The two months holiday system originated to suit earlier people's farming schedules.

6. It is more economical.

7. Immigrant children, and those other children whose parents are unable to help them with their lessons at home, drop behind considerably by the end of the lengthy holidays.

Most of these claims cannot be corroborated, when put to test in the context of prevailing conditions.

First of all, lengthy holidays let the children spend quality time with their parents. Depriving

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