Teachers, parents trade barbs over inattention to children

KABUL (Pajhwok): Teachers and experts consider parents’ role as important in motivating their children to learn their lessons and urge the families to pay serious attention to their children in this regard.

Teachers: Teachers, parents hold same responsibility

Laila Salehi, a teacher of Dari language literature at AbulQasimFerdausi school, complained about the negligence of parents towards their children and said: “Unfortunately parents don’t pay much attention to the education of their children in Afghanistan”.

She said all the classes she taught had up 50 students and only five percent of her students did not do homework and come to the class without reviewing their lessons at homes regularly.

Pointing to the high level of illiteracy in the country, she said: “Some of my students whose parents are illiterate are quite good in learning their lessons, they have no one at their homes to guide them so they come to me in free time and ask to solve their problems or answer some of their questions”.

She said some students whose parents were illiterate had graduated with first positions and maintained their first positions at the university as well.

She asked families inattentive to their children to be serious and pay strict attention to the lessons of their children.

Laila, another teacher of Dari language literature, she said: “The total number of my students reaches 250, it is very hard to reach that number of students”.

She said parents must follow up the lessons of their children every day that what was the child taught, homework and what lessons they needed to get ready for the next day.

Laila said: “The teacher plays the role of an instructor, students must follow the instructions of their teacher, review the lessons and do home work”.

While Farozan Sadat, a teacher of a private school, said: “What children learn first they learn it from their parents, we, the teachers are just instructors, teachers cannot handle all students of a class”.

According to Sadat, only 70 percent of her students pay their attention to their lessons, the remaining 30 percent do not pay attention to their lessons because of their parents’ negligence.

Sadat also urged parents to pay attention to the lessons of their children.

Wreshmin Sadat, a teacher at Ali Sina High School, said it was very important that parents pay attention to the lessons of their children. “It even helps the teachers and further develops the talent of children”.

She said: “The low level of literacy in Afghanistan is because of the lack of cooperation of parents about the education of their children”.

She also urged parents to assist their children in learning their lessons on a daily basis and they must try to identify their children’s talents and encourage them for more improvement.

Doctor Sharafuddin Azimi, a lecturer of Psychology Department of Kabul university, said families could play an essential role in improving children’s learning ability. “We do not need to force children to learn, instead we must give them motive to learn, instead of forcing children to study, we can make a good timetable for them so they can love learning, play some time and study in some specific time”.

Azimi said teachers and parents should use interactive teaching methods that could encourage students to learn and make them cooperative with their classmates.

According to Azimi, teachers must create a favorable learning environment for students and the lessons must be diverse and interesting.

He said the quality of teaching was not standard in Afghanistan, classrooms were substandard and instructional materials insufficient.

He said: “The teachers must help students in their homework, their program must be according to their ages, talent and they must use new methods while teaching them and families must also check daily their children while they study”.

While some parents accused teachers of inattentiveness.

Madina Niazi, a resident of Khushal Khan area of Kabul city and a mother of a student, complained about mischievousness of some students and blamed the teachers for being negligent in this regard.

Niazi said: “My daughter is in the third grade, she is not interested in her lessons, she is always busy playing games on mobile phone, she neither studies in the house nor in the class, her teacher just casually comes to the class and wastes the time”.

Najmia, another resident of Khushal Khan area, a mother of two sons, said her sons were studying in third class in a government school. She complained teachers paid no proper attention to their students.

She added: “Majority of the teachers do not check home works of their students, they teach in a hurry and pass the time by storytelling. She said that she is literate and she helps her children in their lessons, what illiterate parents can do about such issues,” she said.

aw/ma

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