Relaxation breaks: benefits for students

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Extract from the article: Le Gouvernement togolais, par arrêté interministériel en date du 6 octobre dernier, a introduit deux congés de détente désormais dans l'année scolaire au Togo. Il faut dire que cela existe déjà dans d'autres systèmes éducatifs au monde, notamment au

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The Togolese government has introduced relaxation holidays into the 2023-2024 school year. In pupils and teachers will benefit from 247 days of lessons and rest days rest days (09 days in the first term and 10 days in the second), in addition to the Christmas and Easter holidays.  This innovation in the division is deemed necessary for « the mental and physical health of teachers and pupils the mental and physical health of teachers and pupils », says the Ministry of Primary and Secondary Education in a Tweet on its official website. in a Tweet on its official page. Jacques Messan, a coach specialising in success and career guidance talks about the advantages of these time off for students.

On 6 October, the Togolese government issued an inter-ministerial decree introducing two rest days during the school year in Togo. It has to be said that this concept already exists in other education systems around the world, notably in Benin, France, Germany and the United States, to name but a few.

Now, the advantage of this concept of relaxation is this: there are lots of lessons given to pupils by different teachers.  But when there are different teachers for different subjects, the student has to put all the lessons given by the different teachers into his head, into his brain, and at the same time work on exercises in these different subjects to guarantee success at the end of the year. You can clearly see that it's a lot of work, a lot of things being asked of the child at the same time. After all, he's a child. Many children have to do housework, learn their lessons and do their homework all at the same time.

It's huge for the child. It's a challenge, not to say a chore, for the pupils. As a result, many children fall ill towards the end of the year, on the eve of assessments or even during end-of-year exams. Some fall ill, others are stressed because they've had so many lessons not studied. This leads to panic on the eve of exams, which means that some learners fail when they could normally have passed. The accumulation of lessons and homework stresses children and weakens their immune systems.

The advantage of a relaxing holiday is that it allows learners to take a break, to relax, to put their thoughts in order, to allow their brains to regenerate, so that they can go back to school with a new zest, a new energy, a new motivation that will enable them to succeed.

The holidays also give students a chance to fill in the gaps, particularly to catch up on chapters they haven't studied. It's also an opportunity for the student to do a lot more exercises, to assimilate more of the chapters they haven't yet learnt.

The other advantage is that this time off will allow learners to de-stress for the health of the school year.

This will prevent learners falling ill on the eve of end-of-year exams, which could obviously have a negative impact on their results.So I think that this time off for relaxation is very welcome.In Finland, for example, as well as taking time off, they have reduced the number of subjects deemed to be of little use and abolished others altogether in order to alleviate both the difficulties faced by learners and the efforts made by teachers.

Now, as far as the parents are concerned, they will have to make sure that they don't take advantage of these holidays to give their children more work.Instead, parents should give their children time to study. It will also be an opportunity for parents to build their children's confidence, encourage them, reassure them, support them and show them a lot more affection.  So I think that parents need to get behind the system of relaxing holidays.

Expert: Jacques Messan, Coach specialising in academic success and career guidance

Interview by William O.