Kolkata: Little Dipro is on his way to school. It's a ritual he is slowly getting used to at the tender age of three. But unlike most other kids of his age, Dipro says he enjoying his stuff.

"I draw fish and apples in school. I don't like eating apples though," says he with a cheeky grin.

Dipro likes his school because he doesn't have to read or write. It's one of the few schools in Kolkata, which is trying to implement the proposals of NCERT's National Focus Group on Early Childhood Education.

The National Focus Group on Early Childhood Education discourages any reading or writing before the age of four. The Council feels that such activities interfere into a child's own set of self-directed learning priorities and could undermine the child's sense of initiative.

Says Regional Co-ordinator Eurokids, Soma Patra, "If a child holds a wooden pencil, his muscles are damaged and though this does not show at first, it starts to show after some years. When the child goes to about class V or VI, the child starts resenting writing, because he's done a lot of writing before his age."

The Council's focus group observed that while the short-term risks of writing during infancy involved manifestation of stress symptoms amongst children, it could also have far-reaching effects on the children's motivational, intellectual and social behaviour in the long run.

Learning, after all, should be fun. So the next time you pressure your child to complete her writing homework, spare a thought for the damage it could cause in the long run.