Cursive Writing

With the advent of technology, one important skill - the writing skill is deteriorating day by day. Now, most of the writing is done on the laptops and desktops. Among the writing skills, cursive writing by school children and students has completely diminished today.

Recently, I had an opportunity to mark some university students’ test papers. I was shocked to notice that virtually all the students answered their questions word by word writing as shown in the example. None of them used cursive writing. 

I believe that over the years students especially the younger generation would have lost the skill of writing cursive writing.  Sad to say no effort has been taken to encourage or popularize this important skill among students. I believe the skill needs to be taught from the primary level. First of all, let the teachers themselves be equipped with this skill so that they impart the skill competently to their pupils and students. 

Before, cursive writing was considered an important skill and teachers took time to teach students this artistic skill. A lot of work books were used to teach students the correct way of cursive writing. Such books were abundantly found in the bookshops those days. Schools also purchased these books to be used by students to learn cursive writing. Perhaps such books are still available in the bookshops today.

Of course there are many advantages of using cursive writing compared to the word by word writing. Besides the speed, the cursive writing portrays beauty and neatness. In comparison, word by word writing is monotonous and boring.

As an educationist, I see this handicap among the students as a serious lost to our students. We do not want the beauty of cursive writing to fade away just like that. We need to revive the skill. Teachers and school can play a significant role to heighten cursive writing among our students. The Education Ministry should seriously look into this problem and take remedial steps to arrest the decline of the use of cursive writing by students.