Discuss the arguments for and against sending children to boarding schools.
Boarding schools:
What would be one’s spontaneous response to this term? I am sure it is a mixed response for there are both advantages and disadvantages. The first response of the young child is of being on his own, on the threshold of an adventure. If he is familiar with D’Arcy and Billy Bunter and with the novels of Enid Blyton, he can well imagine hostel life to be a glorious picnic. But once he goes to school, he realizes that boarding houses do not only mean midnight get-togethers but a great deal more in terms of discipline.
In fact, boarding schools do have a lot of advantages. The border can avail himself of all the facilities which a day student cannot. Teaching hours can be adjusted to give the child sufficient time for games. Children of the same age group are together. Hours have to be observed for meals and various other activities. The students learn both self-reliance and independence and become capable of looking after themselves. Often they may have to take decisions and make choices and these help them mature earlier than they may have done at home.
There is nothing in this world which is an unmixed blessing. Boarding schools have many disadvantages. At a tender age children are denied family care and affection and are deprived of maternal care. Often when they have to decide things for themselves, they may feel lost and unhappy. Boys are grouped together into dormitories and are thus unable to have any privacy or freedom. Many teachers and housemasters are harsh and strict and not understanding. More than all there is the attitude of the parents. Many parents think of boarding schools not as institutions of education but as corrective institutions. When they feel that their child has become wayward and does not devote sufficient time to studies or does not obey them, they think of a boarding school.
Many of the children who are sent there may be children who have failed to respond to the love and care of their parents or are children whose parents have failed to give them love and care. If hoarding schools are used as a threat, then children cannot be expected to like them. There was a whole generation in England which rebelled against public schools. They felt that there was a great lack of freedom and an excessive uniformity in thought. But times have changed. Many principals of modern schools try to understand the psychological problems of their wards and have a flexible approach towards the methods of enforcing discipline. If the family atmosphere is sound and healthy, then boarding schools are good; but, if something is basically wrong with the family background. then no school can help the child. Home is the first school and the best one.
Often it becomes necessary to send children to boarding schools. This happens when there are no proper facilities in a nearby school or the parents are being frequently transferred or have to go abroad. If the child has basic security and he feels that he is wanted, nothing will go wrong. Every child should spend at least a year or two in a boarding school; otherwise, he lives in a cloistered world and his education is incomplete. By living with people who do not belong to his family circle, he learns to adjust, to become less selfish, and to become more considerate.
