The common universal concern of all parents is to visualise the future of their children, as brightened successful with a loving family and a prosperous career. This is a dream every parent conjures, when looking at the new born baby. But many things should happen before this dream is realised. Much depends upon the inherent and latent capabilities of the child, the environment of growth, schools and family guidance and many other factors. Some parents think that the child's development intellectual as well as physical is the entire responsibility of the school and teacher. They forget that the foundation for the child's development are laid long before he enters the school by themselves at the home. They set an example to the children by their behavior. The children automatically set their parents as heroes and imitate them naturally. The boys (or girls) are proud to speak about the accomplishments and performances of their parents in great adultation. Besides the child's parents, other families in the neighborhood also exert a considerable influence on the child's development. The parents have a very crucial role to play in the intellectual development of the child. The stories told by the parents have a profound influence of the children who would be motivated to attain the performances of heroes in the stories.

Some children exhibit, at an early stage itself, their goals or what they would like to be when they grow up and this may sometime shock the parents. Though this may not be to the liking of the parents, or at variance with what the parents have in mind, such built-in ambitions and interests of the children, so long as they are honorable, should be encouraged and promoted. These early interests generally indicate a particular trait or talent.

Basically, every parent should plan to provide a basic education so that the child may have a sound foundation to pursue his/her special talents. In case of children who do not make any early choice, it is better that they pursue in the broad field of education and decide his/her ultimate choice without losing time. Once the decision is made, additional training in the specific line of the child's choice may be provided.

Sometime, teenagers often loose interest in continuing the school education which they believe to be useless. It would be rather different to convince such children about the immense handicaps they would experience later in life in the absence of such broad education. The advantages of a finished education should be convincingly brought home to the children irrespective of what specific line he/she takes up.

Some parents are very anxious to see that their children do not commit mistakes. Often, some children are subject to too much regimentation. Care should be taken, both by parents and teachers that a balanced programme is maintained keeping in view the realities of the life situation besides the pursuit of intellectual activities.

It is also commonly seen that parents feel hurt when their children do not accept their advice regarding child's future. The parents feel that their experience and maturity entitle them to decide their child's future. This usually happens when a parent misses to achieve what he wanted to achieve and desires that his child should achieve what he did not achieve. There are many factors that influence the decisions of children, mostly due to inheritance and it would be foolish of the parents to build the personality of the child in confirmity with their wishes. The correct approach is such cases would be to properly understand and cooperate with the child in helping to decide his/her future. It should be clearly understood, however, that the final decision rests with the child not with the parents. It is the privilege of parents to ensure that the child is provided with wide range of experience and database and enable the child to make a final choice. They should give the child an opportunity to see with his own eyes, hear with his own ears and find answers to these questions regarding the particular line he wishes to adopt. This would help the child to choose, from different options, that which appeals most. Other methods that may be useful are intelligence tests, aptitude tests and vocational interest test. Psychological tests may also be administered though these are not infallible.

The period between childhood and adulthood, of which the thresh hold years are a part is a very important transition period. During this period, (10-14 years) he learns to shoulder more and more responsibility for himself. The period from ten to fourteen is crucial when several of life's major changes physical, mental and social-occur. How a blossoming youth relates himself(herself) to the changing circumstances of the threshold period goes a long way in deciding the future. It is at this period that the child needs noble and intelligent guidance to become happy and successful. Otherwise, the child's future is wasted and it is possible the child may grow into undesirable adulthood. A child's mind is very active when he comes into the threshold period. His capacity to think is trying to reach its peak and parents may find it hard to answer the child's probing questions. The threshold period often prepares the child for its future life. The seeds of character, personality and health habits sown in childhood take root during these formative years and determine the child's future development. A child needs wise and sympathetic help by the parents who should not try to dominate his personality. Too many parents inhibit their child for life by making all decisions for him and insisting that he accept them without due consideration of the child's aptitudes, talents and natural interests. The parent should help the child discover his own talents and special interests and his reasonings. The parents must allow the child to learn from his mistakes.

One of the major problems of the children in the threshold period is fear, not childhood fears like being afraid of darkness but complex fears like facing the examination of getting admonition parents or teachers. children of this age try to stifle their fears and do not readily confide to parents. Even though such fears are foolish, the parents should be ready to understand and help. A child should be encouraged to do what is proper regardless of his fears since unnecessary fears robs the incentive to push forward in spite of difficulties. Another feeling which often causes great difficulties to children at the threshold period is anger. It is an intense emotion which instantly overwhelms all actions and thought when the child meets with opposition or is humiliated. Anger appears so suddenly and very impulsively that before one knows it he has acted on impulse, only to regret it later. It is therefore very important to a child in the threshold period to understand anger and how to control it. It is at this period the child begins to assert himself and anger is easily manifested. He craves for independence and becomes angry with others including his parents when they seem to stand in the way of his liberties. Parents and/or teachers should play an important role to point out to the child in the threshold period how anger impains his sensibility to think.

The most striking feature of the threshold period is the rapid growth of the child and this physical characteristics become clearly manifest. Success in life depends, apart from physical growth, on other factors like intellect, environment, opportunities etc. It is at this stage (threshold period) the child requires proper guidance and direction from the parents, the teachers and the society. This is a very crucial stage and determines the future of the child. Parents and teachers should keep a vigilant eye on the behavioral patterns of the child and watchout for any abnormalities. It is particularly incumbent upon the parents as well as the teachers to understand the company of the child since the child is greatly influenced by the action of other children of the same age. Regular habits should be inculcated in the children should be exposed to good intellectual thinking for them to become useful and successful in later life. The school & the teachers should keep in constant touch with the family and for this purpose, it is desirable to have frequent teacher-parent dialogue. This is an aspect which is mostly neglected in the present day education.

Education of the children is posing gigantic problems particularly in the context of the developing countries where population explosion, poverty and unemployment are severe. The Governments are not paying adequate attention to the needs of children's education belonging to the poor section resulting in mass illiteracy. A majority of the children belonging to the poorer classes in the developing countries are primarily concerned in income earning to support their families which takes top priority. Education among poverty-ridden families poses great challenges to the society as a whole and though Governments are trying to tackle the problem, the efforts have not had any significant impact. So much so, the children of the poor classes go without any basic education whatsoever. This inability of the part of the Governments to provide proper educational facilities has given rise to spent of private educational institutions who have commercialised education for their own selfish advancement. However, these educational institutions are reachable only by very affluent sections of the society & at a vast majority of the people have to depend, for the education of their children, on the facilities provided by the Government and these are woefully lacking. Even in the schools that are run by the Government, basic facilities like proper buildings, adequate staff, libraries & laboratories etc., are inadequate in most cases. Also, individual attention to children is just not paid due to inadequacy of teachers. Particularly in rural areas this is so, resulting in deprivation of education to a vast majority of children of the poorer classes. There are a variety of social, economic, political, and traditional factors that are responsible for the present state of affairs in respect of education of children of the poorer classes, both in rural as well as urban areas and gigantic efforts are needed on the part of the Government and the society to provide equal opportunities to children of all sections to basic education. It is therefore necessary to recognise that society has a duty and an obligation to provide equal opportunities to children of all classes, for proper education so that they grow into proper adulthood and become useful citizens of the society. The society can ignore this duty only at the peril of creating a large number of unsocial elements endangering the very society's existence.

This problem of education to provide equal opportunities to all children is again linked with the socio-economic factors and chronic poverty and unemployment in the developing countries. To tackle the problems of education in isolation would be foolish. An integrated approach to eliminate poverty should take top priority with education of the children of the poorer classes. To think of providing education to children of poor families without eliminating poverty would be like putting the cart before the horse. Poor families look forward to their children for augmenting the income of the family for fulfillment of the basic need of food and any programmes which deprive them of this necessity would not succeed.

In this regard, I venture to submit a few of my thoughts for consideration :

1. Programmes to eliminate poverty and raise the income levels of the poor people should be undertaken with top priority on a massive scale so that parents can afford to send their children to Basic educational school instead of to work.

2. Informal education methods have to be developed with modern teaching aids like radio, T. V., films, etc.., at timings suitable to the children.

3. Adequate school with properly trained teachers should be established to cover the entire population and proper arrangements should be made for monitoring and evaluation of the performance of the teachers and the pupils periodically.

4. The schools should be provided with physical facilities like good buildings with adequate toilet facilities, furniture etc., along with modern developed educational facilities including A. V. aids.

5. A massive awareness programme has to be undertaken to motivate and create awareness among the parents of poor classes who are illiterate, uneducated, ignorant and steeped in poverty so that they may know the advantages of education to their children.

6. In order to facilitate the education of children of poor families , efforts should be made to establish residential schools, with free boarding and lodging facilities, exclusively for the benefit of poor children and provided with suitable supplementary educational facilities by special residential coaching so that the poor children may compete with other affluent children with equal competence.

Concluding, I must emphasize that as long as different classes of people with different economic levels exist in the society, it would require gigantic efforts in terms of investment, personnel and time, to equalize opportunities of children to basic education. It is fervently hoped that such massive efforts would be undertaken before long.

Contact Info:

DR. B. MOHANTY
Director of State Resource Centre for Adult Education
Janaskisha Bhavan, Unit V, Bhubaneswar- 751001
THEMATIC WORKING GROUP-ISL.NO.4