SUMMER vacations will be starting soon: we are in the midst of a heatwave, maybe the vacations should have started by now. Irrespective, most students are going to get two and a half months of non-school time. What bliss. What an opportunity to laze around, stay up late, get up late, do things unhurriedly and not be bothered about the clock.

Yes, there will be homework and some parents will try to make schedules and so on. But my plea is different. Let children enjoy their downtime. Let them have lots of unstructured time. Let them daydream and let them feel a bit bored as well. They will benefit a lot from all this.

So, how do we do all that? This depends on the circumstances of each household and the opportunities that might be available to them.

It is a great idea for children to travel during the summer vacation. Going to a different country or a different city for some time can enrich their lives a lot. They meet new people, experience different cultures and languages, different weather, different cuisines and, if nothing else, the different rhythms of life. Travel can be a great teacher. A visit to cousins or grandparents can be enriching in other ways too. The time they spend with grandparents, cousins and friends will create bonds that will last throughout their lives.

This is such a wonderful opportunity for children to do things at a leisurely pace.

Summer schools are a great opportunity for meeting new people and discovering new things to do. Summer schools that focus on academics might be important for those in their final years of high school or those who need serious remedial work but not for anybody else. Instead, if summer school offers drama, debates, writing, reading, swimming, sports, or new skills, they would definitely be interesting for children. Do not bore the living daylights out of children by sending them to summer schools that simply redo this year’s syllabus or prepare children for next year’s classes. What is the point of normal school then?

Give children the freedom to laze around, have days of doing nothing, hours of daydreaming, months of reading what they want to and hours of playtime and time with friends. Summers are precious. We only live once, it seems, so why not allow them to enjoy themselves a little as well? They will probably end up learning more and growing more through leisurely reading, writing, meeting friends and playing than they would through a regimented programme. For children up to high school level, this more relaxed mode, with plenty to read and work on, seems the right way to enjoy the break and make it productive.

Since I keep writing on education, sometimes young adults write to me about advice on what to read or how to improve themselves in a certain area. Summers are excellent for this. If you think you really need to work on your English, Urdu or math, the summer months give you the kind of relaxed time you need, and two and a half months is a long enough period for you to be able to make a discernible difference in your proficiency level in any area you really care about. If it is a language, set a programme for yourself that allows you ample exposure to listening, reading and writing the language. With so much on the internet now, this is not difficult to manage. And with an hour or two of consistent effort, two and a half months can make a huge difference.

For example, for English, listening to the news and watching programmes and movies can help. Newspaper editorials, op-eds, good monthlies and books are an effective way of improving reading and vocabulary. Make sure you have access to a dictionary when you read. And write. Write and share your work with someone who can give you a bit of feedback. Anyone who can be persistent in this period, with all of these, will notice the difference.

Other subjects, like math or programmes or programming might require a bit of expert help too. This can be in the form of a teacher or online tutorials. A few months ago, I was in the process of hiring a research assistant, and wanted to know if the candidates had good knowledge about a particular programme. The person who impressed me most told me later that she spent a week doing online tutorials to get all the basics. After a week she felt confident enough to not only take a test on basic operations, she also felt comfortable enough to say that she knew the basic structures and operations and could learn more advanced features, as needed, on her own.

Going outside is not easy or advisable, especially for children and especially during the day when temperatures are high. This is exactly why schools are closed for a good two and a half months across most of the country. This is such a unique and wonderful opportunity for children to relax, laze about, be a bit bored at times and do things at a leisurely pace. And do things because they like to explore or like them or love them and not because they have to do them.

There is enough time to pick up new skills or areas and develop them sufficiently to be able to enjoy them: a new sport, craft or skill. It can be a time for remedial work too. It is time to have new experiences through travel, and/ or meeting new people or developing deeper bonds with family and friends. So, please, let your children let their hair down and have some fun. Please do not restrict them to schoolwork or even make schoolwork their main focus over the summer vacation.

The writer is a senior research fellow at the Institute of Development and Economic Alternatives and an associate professor of economics at Lums.

Published in Dawn, May 23rd, 2025