Little avenues available for underprivileged parents to engage children at home

As people are supposed to keep themselves and their families indoors during the lockdown regime, it is especially challenging for families living in small apartments without computers to bar their children from going out.

Abid Hussain, who lives with his wife and three children in a 250-square-foot (27.78-square-yard) flat in the Sunbeam Apartments in Gulistan-e-Jauhar Block 14, is one such man who cannot afford electronic gadgets and similar items for his children that would let them not feel the need for going out for recreation.

The flat, in which Hussain’s family has been residing for two years, has neither a separate kitchen nor a corridor where one could have some walk. His little house is comprised of just one bedroom with a small lounge that has no television set.

There is no proper ventilation in the flat. According to Hussain, such single-room flats might only be good for unmarried people. For a man like him who has a family, living in such a flat becomes a choice only when he cannot afford to pay heavy rents.

Some two years ago, when he had shifted from Dera Ghazi Khan to Karachi, he chose such a tiny flat for two reasons — he had limited financial resources at that time and he wanted to save money to bring his family to Karachi.

“What else we can do except living a hard life to survive. The flats having an American kitchen are not for auto-rickshaw drivers,” Hussain said. “We have no washing machine, freezer and such other things. They are not for us. We have a pedestal fan for children and a second-hand ceiling fan in the bedroom. We can’t accommodate anything extra in the flat.”

He is, however, thankful for having a shelter. “The space in our flat is enough for our five-member family. The children use the lounge as their bedroom at night and we all come together in the same lounge for breakfast and dinner.”

A jail for juveniles

Hussain made it sure that his children received education. His 11-year-old and nine-year-old daughters, Fatima and Zahra, are currently in grades five and three respectively, while their youngest sibling, six-year-old Anis, will soon attend a primary school nearby —the Government Primary School Pehlwan Goth. The father also made arrangements to provide religious education to the children. After coming home from their schools, the children would go to a madrasah to receive religious education free of charge.

However, the daily routine of the children has been altogether disrupted since the last month when the Sindh government ordered the closure of all educational institutions to protect the children from the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Since then, Hussain’s children and other kids in the apartment building find little opportunities to go out. They have to spend their entire days and nights inside their little homes. ‘After the schools’ closure, my kids live inside the flat most of the time. They feel like they have been imprisoned in a small cage,” Hussain remarked.

Not many options

The current situation poses many a challenge to Hussain as on the one hand, he does not want the kids to stay at home all the time as it could affect their mental health and on the other hand, letting the children go out is very risky when the COVID-19 cases are on the rise.

Moreover, he also does not want the education of his children to be disrupted but feels quite helpless in this regard as he and his wife have both not been to any school and thus cannot engage their children in educational activities at home.

Another serious issue that has been depressing Hussain is his income. For some weeks, his income has been almost zero. He is also waiting for the end of the lockdown so that he could be able to earn money through his rickshaw that he had bought a few months ago on instalments.

“Ab kahan se kamaon jis se main kiraya aur qistain bhar sakun, lekin ye mushkil din bhi aik din khatm ho jain ge [How should I earn now to be able to pay rent and rickshaw instalments. However, these difficult times will end one day]”

Homeschooling issues

During interviews with many families who live in small flats, The News learnt that all of them had similar woes regarding the children. Ashfaq Khan, who along with his three-member family — two sons and wife — shifted from Swat to Karachi some eight years ago, says teaching the children at home is not possible for him because he and his wife have never attended schools.

However, Khan’s children sometimes slip out from the flat to play with other children in the walkways of the building. “Before the coronavirus pandemic, my two kids would go for tuition to a neighbouring flat but these days the neighbours don’t allow them to come — perhaps they want to keep social distance.”

There are also families residing in such studio flats who have been successfully managing the children in the lockdown regime. The parents of a majority of such families, however, have attended schools till some grade.

“I know the importance of education, therefore, I always tell my children to read and become great men,” says Saeed Ahmed who attended a primary school some three decades ago. He explains that he has been engaging his children to watch television, read books and memorise verses of the Holy Quran. When the kids get bored, they start playing Ludo, a popular board game, he says.

Recommendations

Commenting on the problem of dealing with children during the lockdown, a number of educators told The News that school closures will have severe effects on the young learners, especially those who belong to the low-income families.

According to educators, the developed countries have shifted to online classes and some states are also using other mediums of communication such as radio and TV for educational purposes.

The closure of schools in Pakistan, where around 22.8 million children are currently not attending schools and a large number of them do not have access to the internet, has resulted in serious consequences for the children. The kids, whose parents are uneducated, are more vulnerable.

“At present, it seems that the policymakers and relevant authorities have no solution. However, they can utilise the available resources for education, such as private FM radio stations and local cable TV channels. News channels can also play a pivotal role in this regard by airing awareness programmes and public service messages for unschooled parents,” says Dr Fatima Dar of the Iqra University.

The role of electronic media needs to be enhanced in this regard. In 2016, the Supreme Court had also issued directives to the Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority to ensure that all TV channels utilize 10 per cent of their time in broadcasting public service messages.

Zulfiqar Qazilbash, who recently contributed in launching the Ilm Association — an online platform that offers free internet-based educational products and services to students and educationists, says that uneducated parents can engage their children in various activities like drawing pictures and painting.

They can also teach traditional and practical life skills to their children at home, he adds.

If the uneducated parents have no skills to offer, they can narrate moral stories to their children and discuss topics such as ethics, social responsibility and civic sense with them, Qazilbash says, adding that most significantly, such parents can tell their children how education is important in the lives of uneducated people.

Educator Abdur Rehman, the general secretary of the Pakistan Private Schools Association, calls for using radio to help children stay at home without boredom.

Almost everyone living in the city has a mobile phone, in which a built-in FM radio can be used for keeping the children at home, he remarks and adds that there are many radio channels presenting good programmes for children, especially the FM channels operating under the umbrella of the Pakistan Broadcasting Corporation.

Similarly, he says, if the uneducated parents have television sets, they must contact the cable operators of their area to fix educational channels on the TV for their children.

He also advises the parents to ask their children to open books and read in order to help them develop the reading habit. The children, he says, can also be allowed to walk outside for some time if they take all the precautionary measures.