Nothing for children to do after exams end

YOUR article in The Star “Pens down parties are dangerous… Warning,” refers.

Like Mt Stromboli in Italy, our learners – especially just after the horrendous matric exam – erupt every year with grim but explosive regularity.

I know of my own students that just vanished overnight after the last paper.

Motor car accidents, drownings and stabbings. Generally accompanied by “purified” sanitiser – also known as alcohol but which was not always the culprit for I know of some cousin many years ago that drowned off the Wild Coast without any alcohol being involved, one day after his last Standard 10 exam paper.

What exactly do all learners, not necessarily just post matric, but even from Grade Zero all the way to university graduates, do immediately after their end of year exams?

After a regimented existence over most of the year, even some mid-year holidays involve extra classes or tuition that leaves very little time for having some fun, children are just stamping their hooves and biting at the reins, anxiously awaiting the second week of December.

If they are fortunate enough to survive the initial explosion, they then have to face the reality of another four to six weeks. If close friends are not available in close proximity, children can become extremely lonely.

This can lead to either depression or even some mischief.

It is a vulnerable period, especially if parents enjoy only a few days off from work and are forced to leave their kids to their own devices.

During “our” days we always had stuff to do. Assisting parents to maybe run the family store, engage in tournaments, play hide and seek, cowboys and crooks, friendly cricket and soccer in public playgrounds and parks and even in the streets of Durban.

Or sometimes seek “adventure” by exploring our previous haunts from where we were forcefully removed by the Group Areas Act.

We also sought excitement in the Famous Five and Hardy Boys and Noddy, who lived forever in free public libraries.

Nobody, nothing, really bothered us. No blatant, vicious crime. Few pickpockets. We knew the safe gulleys. The world, of course, has now rotated out of control, making it all that more difficult to plan some clean fun outdoors. So the majority of children are lost. And really, whose fault is that? EBRAHIM ESSA |