The children who never sleep

Singapore is a country where sleep is not much prized.

Why do I say this? Well, I just have to look at the school children wending their way to school - at around 7 am. Yes, you read right. They are on their way to school by 7 am - often earlier - because school often starts at about 7.30 am.

That is hideously early for a young child to be getting to school. Yet, it is not just the school children who have to get up early - the teachers do, too. The result is that an entire profession and about half Singapore's children, suffer from sleep deprivation. I say "half" the children for a reason. Singapore once had too few schools for the children they had to teach. There wasn't space and they hadn't had the time to build them all. So they struck upon an idea: use the same schools twice in a day. The school day was divided into two halves: a "morning session" and an "afternoon session". To fit both sessions into one day, the morning session had to start really early - and the afternoon session had to finish really late. A child on the morning session will finish about lunchtime, or thereabouts. A child on afternoon session will finish in the evening.

So, this system was created for a time when there wasn't enough teaching space to go around. Now, however it is different. There are more schools. There are fewer children - yet many schools persist in this division of the day into morning and afternoon sessions.

The children don't look well on it. They are evidently tired. I have taught such children. Many of them have poor concentration, simply because they haven't slept enough. There is another factor. Many of them are addicted to computer games and play them late into the night - or watch TV to similar hours - then they have to get up before 6 am to get to school. The consequences are not good. These children are too tired to really learn much at school.

It is time that the tradition of an early morning session be phased out. The children would be less tired and could focus better - and the teachers, too, would be less worn out and better able to give their energies to the classroom.

Every nation needs to sleep: even Singapore. I would like to see schools that start at a reasonable hour - say nine am. It would be a relief not to see tired children on their way to school, at an hour when they should really still be asleep.