A Two-Day Weekend Could Give Kashmir’s Children What Education Often Forgets: Time to Rest, Play, Think and Grow.
“A child does not become better educated simply by spending more days inside a classroom; a child becomes better educated when learning, rest, play, family, creativity and life are given the right balance.”
The proposal for a five-day school week and a two-day weekly break in Jammu & Kashmir deserves a serious and informed public discussion. Supported by voices including Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the proposal should not be viewed merely as a demand for one additional holiday. It gives us an opportunity to ask a much more fundamental question:
Are we educating our children—or simply keeping them academically occupied?
As someone who has been involved in career counselling and educational guidance for more than three decades, I have had the opportunity to interact with thousands of students and parents and observe how children make educational and career choices.
One concern has repeatedly
troubled me:
We are increasingly preparing children to pass examinations, but not necessarily preparing them for life.
Our children are expected to absorb enormous amounts of information, compete for marks, clear entrance examinations and secure admission to prestigious institutions. In this race, we can sometimes overlook the child behind the student.
A child is not merely a future engineer, doctor, civil servant or professional.
A child is a developing human being.
Education must therefore develop not only the intellect, but also the body, personality, emotional resilience, creativity, communication skills, social responsibility, curiosity and ability to think independently.
And that requires something our children are increasingly losing:
Time.
The Problem Is Bigger Than the School Calendar
The debate over a five-day school week should not become a narrow argument about whether Saturday should be a holiday.
The larger issue is the rhythm of childhood.
For many children today, the school day does not end when the school bell rings.
It continues through private tuition, coaching classes, homework, projects, tests, online assignments and preparation for the next examination.
The pattern is often:
School → tuition → homework → test preparation → sleep → repeat.
For some students, even Sunday has ceased to be a genuine day of recovery.
This raises a serious question:
When does a child actually get time to rest, play, think, explore, interact with family and discover his or her own interests?
Academic discipline is necessary. Hard work is necessary. Competition is a reality.
But continuous pressure is not the same as meaningful education.
A Child Is More Than a Report Card
For too long, we have allowed academic performance to become the principal measure of a child’s worth.
Marks matter.
Examinations matter.
Academic achievement matters.
But they are not the whole child.
A student who scores exceptionally well but cannot communicate, cope with failure, work with others, manage pressure or maintain healthy relationships has not received a complete education.
Similarly, a child who is average in examinations may possess extraordinary creativity, leadership ability, empathy, practical intelligence, sporting talent or artistic potential.
Our education system must create opportunities for these abilities to emerge.
The purpose of education should not be to turn every child into a bookworm. It should be to help every child discover and develop his or her potential.
Learning Does Not Stop Outside the Classroom
A child playing football is learning teamwork, discipline and leadership.
A child cycling or hiking is developing physical confidence and independence.
A child reading a novel is developing imagination.
A child talking to grandparents is learning history, family memory and values.
A child helping at home is learning responsibility.
A child painting, writing, gardening, experimenting, making things or learning music is discovering creativity.
Even a child sitting quietly and thinking is developing the ability to reflect.
These are not distractions from education.
They are part of education.
We need to stop treating every minute that is not spent over a textbook as wasted time.
Kashmir’s Children Need Their Outdoors Back
Kashmir has an extraordinary natural environment—mountains, rivers, lakes, forests, meadows and open spaces.
Yet many children experience much of this through a school bus window.
Their free time is increasingly divided between tuition centres, smartphones, television, gaming and social media.
The weekend can provide an opportunity to reverse this trend.
Children should have time for:
sports, cycling, walking, hiking, nature exploration, reading, hobbies, art, family activities and community interaction.
Physical activity is particularly important in an age when children spend increasing amounts of time sitting—in classrooms, coaching centres and in front of screens.
A healthy child needs both an active body and a stimulated mind.
The Mental Space to Grow
We must also recognise that children need psychological breathing space.
A tired mind does not necessarily learn better simply because it spends more hours studying.
Children need opportunities to process what they have learned, reflect on experiences, pursue interests and return to their studies with renewed attention.
When every activity becomes performance-oriented, learning itself can become a source of anxiety.
The objective should be to create children who are curious rather than fearful, confident rather than constantly anxious, resilient rather than terrified of failure.
This is why the debate about school timings and weekly holidays is ultimately a debate about how we understand childhood itself.
What About Our Existing Long Holidays?
Some may rightly point out that J&K already has a long winter break, summer vacation and holidays associated with festivals and other occasions.
That argument deserves consideration.
But it should not prevent us from examining the academic calendar as a whole.
We can revisit the existing pattern of winter, summer and festival holidays and make sensible adjustments wherever necessary.
If some holidays need to be shortened, reorganised or redistributed to accommodate a healthier weekly schedule, that possibility can be examined.
The objective should be to ensure that a revised weekly rhythm has zero or minimal impact on the prescribed curriculum and learning outcomes.
The question is not simply:
“How many holidays do children get?”
The better question is:
“How intelligently are we distributing learning and recovery throughout the academic year?”
Friday and Saturday: We Should Explore More Than One Model
There is no reason why the discussion has to be limited to “Saturday off” versus “Saturday on.”
If authorities believe a full Saturday holiday could create difficulties in maintaining instructional requirements, another model could be explored.
One possibility is to have shorter academic days on both Friday and Saturday.
Friday could be a shorter school day, giving students and teachers sufficient time to return home and offer Friday prayers without the pressure of rushing from school to the mosque.
Saturday could similarly be a shorter academic day, allowing students to complete essential instructional work while beginning their weekend earlier.
This could provide a practical balance between:
academic continuity, student wellbeing and the religious and social rhythm of Friday.
For example:
• Friday: shorter academic hours, allowing sufficient time for Juma prayers and family/community engagement;
• Saturday: shorter academic hours, followed by the weekend;
• Sunday: a full day for rest, family, recreation, hobbies and personal activities.
This is not necessarily the only model.
The authorities could examine different combinations of school hours, instructional days and the existing holiday calendar.
The important point is that we should design the timetable around children’s educational and developmental needs rather than treating the existing timetable as something that can never be reconsidered.
Five Days Should Not Become Five Days of Greater Pressure
A five-day school week will achieve little if we simply compress six days of academic pressure into five.
We should not respond to an additional weekly break by increasing homework, tests, coaching and assignments during the remaining days.
That would defeat the purpose.
Instead, we should examine whether classroom time can be used more effectively by reducing:
• unnecessary repetition;
• excessive homework;
• avoidable testing;
• rote learning;
• redundant assignments;
• and excessive dependence on private tuition.
We can adjust school timings where necessary and make classroom teaching more efficient.
The answer is not less education. The answer is better education.
We Need a Holistic Curriculum, Not Just a Heavier Curriculum
This is where, in my view, the discussion needs to go much further.
For more than three decades, as a career advisor, I have seen students arrive at the point of choosing careers carrying tremendous academic pressure but sometimes having very little understanding of themselves.
They know what marks they obtained.
They know what their parents expect.
They know what their friends are choosing.
But many do not know:
What are my strengths?
What are my interests?
What am I naturally good at?
What kind of work would give me satisfaction?
What kind of person do I want to become?
This is why I believe Kashmir needs a stronger holistic approach to education.
The curriculum should create space for:
sports and physical fitness;
arts, innovation and creativity;
communication and public speaking;
practical and vocational skills;
financial and digital literacy;
problem-solving and critical thinking;
emotional and social development;
values, ethics and civic responsibility;
and, importantly, career awareness and counselling from an appropriate stage.
A child should not spend twelve years learning only how to reproduce information from textbooks.
The child should learn how to think, communicate, create, cooperate and make informed decisions.
Parents Also Have a Role
The transformation cannot happen only through government policy.
Parents also need to reconsider the culture of constant comparison.
Questions such as:
“How many marks did he get?”
“Who stood first?”
“Which coaching centre is she attending?”
“Where did he get admission?”
may appear ordinary, but when repeated continuously they can make children believe that their value is determined by academic performance.
Ambition is good.
Excellence is good.
But a child’s entire identity cannot be reduced to marks, rank or the name of an institution.
Parents should protect some part of the weekend from academic pressure and allow children to spend time with family, friends, sport, hobbies, reading, nature, religious activities and community life.
Even boredom has value.
Sometimes, when a child has nothing scheduled, imagination begins.
A Weekend Should Actually Feel Like a Weekend
If we introduce a two-day break, we should also consider a “no-homework weekend” principle, particularly for younger children, wherever academically feasible.
There is little value in giving children Saturday and Sunday off from school if both days are immediately filled with worksheets, projects, tests and coaching.
A weekend should provide genuine recovery.
It should allow a child to:
play, read, pray, visit grandparents, spend time with parents, meet friends, pursue a hobby, explore nature, exercise, create something—or simply rest.
That is not a retreat from education.
That is education in a broader sense.
What About Working Parents?
This concern is genuine and must be part of the policy discussion.
Families where both parents work may depend on schools for structured daytime arrangements.
Therefore, any change should be accompanied, where necessary, by practical alternatives such as school libraries, sports programmes, supervised extracurricular activities, community learning facilities and other child-friendly arrangements.
Educational reform must be designed around the realities of families.
Let Us Rethink What Success Means
The success of an education system should not be measured only by:
how many chapters were completed,
how many tests were conducted,
how many marks students obtained,
or how many hours they spent in classrooms.
We should also ask:
Are our children healthy?
Are they physically active?
Are they emotionally resilient?
Can they communicate confidently?
Can they think independently?
Can they deal with failure?
Can they work with others?
Can they identify their strengths and interests?
Do they still enjoy learning?
These questions are equally important.
My Appeal: Let Us Educate the Whole Child
I support the broader idea behind the proposed restructuring of the school week because, from my experience of more than three decades in career counselling, I have increasingly felt the need for an education system that looks beyond marks and examinations.
We must stop thinking of the child simply as a future professional.
Before becoming a doctor, engineer, teacher, entrepreneur, civil servant, artist or anything else, the child must first become a healthy, confident, responsible and well-rounded human being.
That requires a change in our thinking.
We need a curriculum that develops the mind without neglecting the body; ambition without sacrificing wellbeing; knowledge without suppressing creativity; and academic excellence without compromising childhood.
The proposed five-day school week can become part of that larger conversation—but it should not be the end of it.
Let us use this opportunity to examine the school calendar, classroom hours, curriculum, homework, examinations, coaching culture and the overall educational environment together.
Because the real question is not:
“How many days should a child go to school?”
The real question is:
“What kind of human being should our education system help that child become?”
Kashmir’s children deserve classrooms where they learn seriously, teachers who understand their individual potential, parents who support rather than constantly compare them, and enough time outside school to play, explore, connect, reflect and grow.
Five days to learn.
Two days to breathe.
And an education system designed not merely to fill young minds with information, but to help them become capable, healthy and compassionate human beings.
“Educate the mind. Strengthen the body. Nurture the heart. Discover the potential. And give every child enough space to simply be a child.”
The author is a Career Advisor & Social Commentator)
