Roy Zia Ur Rehman ISLAMABAD, Aug 9 (APP):When rising temperatures force schools to shut for the summer, the announcement sounds almost like Eid to children no early morning alarms, no heavy uniforms and weeks that seem far too long to end, until the close of vacations brings the sudden panic of unfinished summer work alongside August 14 festive excitement. But summer holidays have a …
From unfinished summer work to green flags, children balance academic pressure with 14th August celebrations
Roy Zia Ur Rehman
ISLAMABAD, Aug 9 (APP):When rising temperatures force schools to shut for the summer, the announcement sounds almost like Eid to children no early morning alarms, no heavy uniforms and weeks that seem far too long to end, until the close of vacations brings the sudden panic of unfinished summer work alongside August 14 festive excitement.
But summer holidays have a strange habit: they begin slowly and end suddenly.
After weeks spent playing street cricket, visiting grandparents in ancestral villages and enjoying lazy mornings, many children are now discovering that the school bag they pushed into a corner back in June has been waiting patiently for them. Inside it sits the real spoiler of August summer homework.
Many students completed their assignments well in time. Others carried their school bags to their grandparents’ homes with good intentions but never opened them. And then there were those for whom taking textbooks to the village in the first place amounted almost to an insult to the very idea of summer vacation. For them, holidays meant holidays.
Some children, however had less freedom. Regular visits to the neighbourhood tuition baji kept notebooks moving page by page throughout the break. With homework now largely complete, their attention is shifting towards tests and examinations that many private schools conduct soon after classes resume.
The approaching academic routine has created a curious August atmosphere inside homes: notebooks and textbooks on one side, green-and-white flags, badges, buntings and Independence Day celebrations on the other.
Dawood Hassan, an eighth-grade student, told APP that he was the first among his three brothers to complete his summer homework, giving him one less reason to panic as the holidays draw towards their end.
But Grade 8 itself has brought a new challenge. The single general science book of earlier classes has given way to subjects such as Physics, Chemistry and Biology, while Mathematics has become more demanding. Dawood said being in a senior class meant he could no longer take studies as lightly as before.
August, however, is making concentration difficult. With Pakistan’s Independence day approaching, flags appearing in markets and streets, and celebrations building up, Dawood said August 14 was pulling him
towards festivities while the thought of examinations waiting around the corner was pulling him back towards his books.
His brother Ibrahim Hassan has a slightly different problem. Talking to APP, Ibrahim said only a day or two of work in his last remaining book was left and he was determined to finish it.
But studying in August has its own distractions. The green-and-white flags outside, Independence Day songs, and particularly the unmistakable sound of children’s bajas in the neighbourhood keep reminding him that August 14 is coming. The books tell him to sit down; the sound outside tells him to come out.
For Muhammad Saleh, an eighth-grade student, the countdown is more worrying. He is already sad that the long summer break is coming to an end while homework for an entire book still remains unfinished.
His experience is shared by many children who spent the early weeks believing there was “plenty of time,” only to discover in the closing stretch that pages left untouched in June do not disappear in August.
Yet children are not the only ones counting the remaining days. For some mothers, the reopening of schools promises a different kind of holiday.
Asifa, a housewife, told APP with refreshing frankness that she would not pretend otherwise: once the children returned to school, mothers like her would finally get some breathing space.
During vacations, she said, one demand follows another throughout the day something to eat, somewhere to go, something to buy, or another activity to arrange.
Another mother, Salma, wiping perspiration from her forehead, described her summer routine in simpler terms: much of the day disappears between the kitchen and cleaning the house. Chips, French fries and one thing after another, she said while describing children’s almost continuous requests for snacks during the holidays.
When children attended school, she could clean the house once and organize her daily routine.
During the holidays, she said, children were around all day, meaning repeated cleaning and repeated trips to the kitchen.
So while children mourn the approaching end of summer freedom, some mothers are quietly looking forward to the return of school bells.
For older students, meanwhile, August carries a different excitement. A Grade 10 student, looking beyond summer homework towards college life, said he was eagerly awaiting the next stage of his education while also preparing to celebrate Independence Day with enthusiasm.
This year’s national celebrations have given youngsters another subject to discuss following the recently signed joint defence agreement between Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Türkiye, under which an armed attack against one signatory would be regarded as an attack against all three.
He said August 14 would be celebrated wholeheartedly, but books could no longer be ignored as examinations and the transition towards college were getting closer.
Across households, therefore, the final stretch of summer is producing its familiar mix of emotions. For children who finished their homework early, there is still time to enjoy the remaining freedom. For those staring at unfinished books, every passing day matters.
For mothers exhausted by endless snacks, scattered rooms and children’s demands, the return of the school routine cannot come soon enough.
Soon, school bags will return to shoulders, uniforms will come out of cupboards, alarm clocks will reclaim the mornings and classrooms will fill again.
Until then, Pakistan’s young generation remains delightfully trapped in a classic August tug-of-war holding a pen in one hand to finish that stubborn last page of homework while holding a green-and-white flag in the other, proudly balancing the duty of their books with the vibrant, patriotic spirit of a nation ready to celebrate its freedom.
