Skools Up!

School up, time for summer camp

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Express News Service

Posted: May 15, 2008 at 2309 hrs IST

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New Delhi, May 14 With vacations round the corner, summer camps for children are already kicking off across the Capital.

Jason Lopez, project manager of Youreka summer camps, the outdoor education division of idiscoveri, says, “The idea is to challenge kids, give them an opportunity to check out the wilderness while having fun.”

Riverside backpacking and rock climbing along the banks of the River Tons, in Tirthan Valley, or Sitlakhet certainly offers children a fresh perspective. Altitudes Adventures is another enterprise set up to challenge children. Its founding member Rajiv Khare says: “It’s wonderful to see a seven-year-old taking his own decisions.”

Other than learning to pitch a tent or balance on ropes, a rural awareness programme in the mountains exposes the children to education outside the textbook. “We attach students to a village so that they can map things first-hand. How many houses are there, for instance, or where the water comes from,” says Khare.

The camps may be exciting, but they are not for everyone. For fashion designer Tanuja Jha, who has never sent her children to a summer camp, fear and cost are impeding factors. “They are risky. Perhaps, if it was cheaper we would send them,” she says.

Sociologist Srinivas Rao, assistant professor at Jawaharlal Nehru University, says the camps are “institutionalised forms of engagement for children”. It is only when the children are back in school after the camps and talk about the holidays that the issue of hierarchy comes up.

“The middle class includes millionaires and government servants with low wages — the camps can create classes within classrooms.”