- Sunday, February 23, 2025
The 78-year-old entrepreneur says parents can’t watch movies while expecting their children to focus on studies
By: Shajil Kumar
INFOSYS co-founder N R Narayana Murthy has said that the onus of creating a good study environment at home rests with the parents.
At a recent event to release Paul Hewitt’s book Conceptual Physics in Bengaluru, Murthy said that parents need to be good role models and should not think that their responsibilities end after providing their children with the right study material and required stationery.
The 78-year-old entrepreneur was responding to a question about how students can concentrate in the age of social media and other distractions.
Murthy remarked that parents can’t watch movies while expecting their children to focus on their studies.
Sharing his own experience, Murthy said he and his wife, Sudha, spent over three and a half hours each day reading with their children, Akshata and Rohan, during their school years to foster a disciplined environment.
While the children were studying, the television used to remain switched off. Murthy said his wife gave up her TV time and helped children study. She believed if she was watching TV, she couldn’t ask children to study.
Coaching classes
Murthy also has a dim view of coaching classes and feels it is not an effective way to help children succeed in their exams.
While responding to a question on suicides in Kota, Rajasthan, a hub of coaching institutes, he pointed out that students who fail to engage in their regular school classes are the ones who end up relying on these external classes.
And parents who are unable to help children think coaching classes as the only way out.
Murthy said that education should be based on comprehension and critical thinking, and not rote memorisation.
He said Hewitt’s book focuses on conceptual understanding and real-world applications to make physics more relatable.
Such world-class learning resources will help strengthen STEM education in India, he added.
