Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Pariksha Pe Charcha, the annual event of reaching out to schoolchildren, teachers and parents online, is a laudable exercise in engaging with the key stakeholders of the education system. The interactive mode, with students fielding questions to the PM, makes it lively and highlights key issues plaguing this ecosystem. Hopefully, the officials concerned are reorienting their priorities and policies accordingly. Timed to sync with school examinations, ever since its first edition in February 2018, the charcha has offered life lessons for the ‘exam warriors’. Like a family elder, the PM addresses concerns such as cheating, stress, time management, family/peer pressure and career avenues.
Of particular importance emphasised this time is the need for gadget-fasting by kids. The increasing time spent online by them is a worrisome trend. The virtual mode of learning necessitated by the Covid pandemic in 2020 saw a sharp rise in the number of children taking to mobile phones and laptops. As per a study, the year saw 65 per cent of them become addicted to the digital world. Overall, the average usage of smartphones went up by 25 per cent to almost seven hours a day. The repercussions of a sedentary lifestyle, with kids preferring devices for studies, games, chatting or following their icons, are many. Abandoning outdoor games and social gatherings comes with problems like poor eyesight, obesity, lack of concentration, sleeplessness, stress, difficult adjustment to real-life situations, cyber bullying et al. Parents and teachers must help reverse this trend by limiting the use of gadgets by children.
That the number of Pariksha Pe Charcha participants has increased from 20,000 to 38.8 lakh students, parents and teachers from across the nation, as also overseas, in the past five years reflects its growing popularity. Herein also lies the hope that both children and parents will listen to the PM and do their best to optimise time spent with gadgets. Children should get out of the virtual world and step into the real one more often as it is beneficial for their mental and physical well-being.
