City students work to get it write

Ten-year old Mudit Shah has just finished 21 sessions of a handwriting improvement course. Like his mother mnny wake up to the importance of better handwriting in senior classes when marks are crucial, reports Bhavya Dore.

Ten-year old Mudit Shah has just finished 21 sessions of a handwriting improvement course.

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“My son’s writing was so unclear that it was becoming a problem when he gave exams or made submissions,” said Mudit’s mother, Amisha, a Ghatkopar resident. “If he can develop it now, there won’t be problems later.”

Many wake up to the importance of better handwriting in senior classes when marks are crucial.

“Most of my students come when they are in Class 8 during vacations so they can improve their handwriting before they get busy in Class 9 and 10,” said Mudit’s teacher Chandan Uchat. “Legible handwriting means better marks.”

In the US, a few colleges conduct examinations on computers. But in India, despite the increasing use of computers, school examinations are handwritten.

“It was pleasing to read notes or documents written as they should be,” said author Umberto Eco in an article in The Guardian. “The art of handwriting teaches us to control our hands and encourages hand-eye coordination.”

It is this coordination that handwriting tutors feels schools are not teaching their students early enough.

But schools say they are attentive to the case of the cursive.

“If you don’t learn how to write properly in primary school, how can you improve your handwriting in higher classes?” asked Indu Mathur, principal of Apeejay School, Kharghar, where students with poor handwriting are given remedial lessons after school.