Ever heard of Aunty Kaur? You might not have, but school children in Delhi, I gather, are familiar with this name. Not that Aunty Kaur is a person. Indeed, there are several Aunty Kaurs, all of them educated housewives who, for a fee, do the holiday projects given to school children, and deliver them along with a ‘cheat chit’ that contains information on how the work was done, just in case the students are grilled by their teacher when they get back to school!
With outsourcing being the mantra of the day, perhaps it should not come as a surprise that the concept is now being applied to more than just software projects and business assignments. Nevertheless, one is somewhat taken aback to discover that even school-going children are resorting to the practice!
A great deal has been said about the pressure our school children are under. What with school lessons, extra curricular activities, sports, projects, homework and swotting for exams, they have little or no time to call their own. Burning the midnight oil, they end up sleep-deprived and exhausted and badly in need of a holiday. But are holidays really holidays? Very often not. Schools have become notorious spoilsports! A test will be scheduled on the first day of school, perhaps to ensure that everyone comes back on time, but equally compelling students to study during their vacation. Or they will be given written holiday homework. Or a project that is to be completed over the vacation and handed in as soon as school resumes!
It is a bit difficult to outsource the studying needed for that first-day-of-term-test, and there are not many Aunty Kaurs willing to take on holiday homework, but project work is a different matter altogether. Here the supply is plentiful — and includes not just enterprising housewives but also professionals, who, for instance, will make for a fee the models required! And where do these children get the money to pay for these services? Surprisingly from their parents, who, to spare their children undue stress, are happy to cough it up.
The mother of two school-going children tells me that such help is available in Calcutta as well. Flyers are distributed to children at the gates of their schools giving them the names of people willing to help with projects. Such blatant ads are also to be found in shops selling schoolbooks and stationery. I have no doubt that there are many who avail of these services, making the whole business of giving students projects a total farce. And I am equally sure that teachers are disapproving.
So what is the solution? To do away with a system that pressurises children to such an extent? Or to make sure that all project work is done in school, using the facilities there, and under the teacher’s eagle eye?
