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“I took away 25 ice-creams from Sam. How many ice-creams does Sam have now?”
“I don’t know,” I would say, and dissolve into tears at the dinner table that was spread with addition and subtraction worksheets. It could extend into an hour-long ritual with my mother, as sometimes I really didn’t know how to handle subtraction and the joy of “borrowing,” and just kept scratching out numbers, or trying to draw ice-creams and wondering why I couldn’t just get an ice-cream for all my suffering.
But that was just math, and we had never been on good terms. The homework for other subjects rarely involved such an ordeal: they would involve talking to your favourite characters, going to the supermarket and asking for the price of fruits (a tad embarrassing, because everyone is just watching a seven-year-old hold up a queue with a worksheet), or growing a Rajma plant. Till we were 11 at least, homework was more visual, creative and imaginative. Then, with every year, it grew more complex, and my one hour of math extended into three, with concepts and names I was almost convinced didn’t exist. (I still shudder at the thought of congruent triangles.)
Yet, would we have learned better without homework? As much as we cursed it, and begged teachers not to send us home with it, maybe it was the necessary evil all along.
Now, as the UAE weighs a ‘no homework’ policy, we asked parents where they stand.
It depends on the age
For Katy Keenan, CEO of the British Chamber of Commerce Dubai (BCCD), the homework conversation cannot be separated from the calendar of childhood itself.
As she says, “I would say that up until year 7 the homework should be optional whereas I realise year 7 and beyond I understand that homework may be necessary to compound knowledge and test comprehension of the information that they are taking in during the day,” she says.
Dr. Soumaya Askri, Assistant Professor at the School of Management, Canadian University Dubai, agrees that age changes everything, but for her, the question runs deeper than optional versus compulsory. “As a mother, I do believe homework can contribute positively to my child’s learning, but I do not believe that homework, simply by existing, automatically leads to better learning.”
The question is, not whether children have homework, as she says. Does it have a deeper educational purpose?
For Aliah Fareed Lutfi Harmouzi, mother to Laith (11, grade 6), Layah (10, grade 5) and Lanah (7.5, grade 2), the age question is really a question about independence, and how deliberately you build it. “This is the whole point of us building them up so they can work independently,” she says, reflecting on the phases her children have moved through in elementary and now middle school. “Soon they’re going to be teenagers, they’re not going to want to spend time with me. I hopefully have given them the skills to continue on.”
However, what about those children, yet to start school? At the opposite end of the school journey sits Marjie Mirabel Gawaran, whose daughter is four and has not yet started formal schooling. For her, the question is almost hypothetical, for now. “Homework is something I would consider helpful when she begins,” she says, explaining that simple, age-appropriate activities at home, can reinforce what children learn in school. Moreover, it also teaches responsibility and time management. And, it’s a bonding session, where both parents and children can talk about their day, and learn together.
Quality over quantity
If there is a single point on which every parent we spoke to agreed, it is this: how much homework a child receives matters far less than what that homework actually asks of them. For instance Dr Askri would prefer her child spend 20 focused minutes on an assignment that requires actual thinking, rather than just spending an hour, completing repetitive tasks, just to demonstrate that homework has been ‘done’.
She doesn’t believe that homework should be fused with academic rigour. Sometimes a shorter, carefully designed task can be intellectually much richer than several pages of exercises.”
Like many other parents, she is also clear on what an assignment should entail. It needs reading. Reflection, problem-solving, creativity and independent thinking. She singles out reading for pleasure as formative, as it can expand vocabulary, imagination, empathy and knowledge. Inquiry-based tasks earn her praise too.
Your child learns, when they’re asked to investigate a question, or observe something in the real world, or maybe just explain an idea in their own words. As for a group or creative projects, she has one caveat: “The work should genuinely belong to the child. A project should not become a competition between parents or require so much adult assistance that the final product no longer reflects the child’s abilities.”
Sometimes, quality is just joy in disguise, especially if it involves a four-year-old, as Gawaran says. Maybe, it’s reading a short story together, or identifying colours and shapes. Or, counting objects at home. A game of ‘I spy’ can go a long way. “These can help children learn without making homework feel like a burden.”
The pressure cooker of the exam years
As children move up through the grades, the stakes, and the stress m climb with them. Keenan points to the strain facing older students juggling a full timetable of subjects. “For the older students close to exams, there is a huge amount of pressure and they can also be time poor managing all the subjects and coursework,” she says. “The best schools will constantly assess the volume across all subjects as understandably each subject teacher won’t have sight of the homework from their colleagues.”
The same tension plays out at home, much before the exam season sets in. Homework becomes an additional pressure, if it is excessive, repetitive, unclear or requires substantial parental involvement. “If I find myself having to teach a concept from the beginning in order for my child to complete an assignment, I would question whether that particular task is serving its intended purpose. Homework should ideally reinforce learning rather than transfer the responsibility for teaching from the classroom to the home.”
What gets squeezed out of the evening
Perhaps the most vivid part of the conversation is what happens after the school bag is unzipped on the kitchen table, and what homework crowds out when it overstays its welcome.
A childhood shouldn’t be a series of responsibilities, and a checklist as long as one’s arm. As Dr Askri explains, she would prefer that her child’s evening needs to include time to decompress after school, talk to the family, or play. A child needs to enjoy being at home, before instantly being shuttled to the desk. “A tired child completing homework late in the evening is not necessarily learning effectively, and the lack of adequate rest may affect the following school day as well.” Even the unstructured moments at home, she argues, are quietly educational.
Conversations at the dinner table, helping with everyday responsibilities, playing a game, reading together or discussing something that happened during the day all contribute to a child’s development. “I therefore think homework needs to fit into a healthy childhood rather than requiring the rest of childhood to fit around homework,” she adds.
Gawaran, thinking ahead to her daughter’s school years, wants the same balance built in from day one. “I would want homework to fit naturally into our evening without taking away too much time from play, family bonding, and sleep. These are also important parts of a child’s development. A healthy routine should provide enough time for learning while still allowing children to relax, be creative, spend time with their family, and get proper rest.”
A bonding ritual, not a core
For Harmouzi, who is also a single mum, the practical answer to the homework debate has been frequency. “If it’s consistent homework, just do it once a week,” she says. It is a rhythm she has come to trust for a reason rooted in confidence, not convenience: “I do teach them that the more you do just the once-a-week homework math sheets, you’re not going to need to study as much for that exam, because you got it.”
The mood around the table matters, as well. She doesn’t deny it can be exhausting and frustrating, especially for a single working mum, who would also just like of a free time after work rather than puzzle out homework. Nevertheless, she is upbeat, and adds that she makes it for all to learn. And, she learns with them. She is candid about reframing the task in her own mind, too: “I make it not so much a chore, but a necessary evil, something they’re just going to have to do in life, and how to manage the time.”
That reframing, she says, has turned homework into something closer to connection than confrontation. “I manage my time, and it really is bonding with them. I mean, they hate homework, some of them go into it crying, some of them enjoy the time with me. By the end of it, we’re all good. We laugh, we joke, we learn, we refresh.” Not every day goes to plan, and she has made peace with that too. “Some days I don’t get to do the homework. I’m like, all right, this is what we call a cluster day, that’s what I call it. We got to sit down and hammer this out.”
Her advice to other parents circles back to the same word Dr. Askri and Gawaran keep returning to, balance, achieved through structure. “If I had to give a piece of advice, it’s just time management — teaching ourselves and teaching them. But when it’s overwhelming and it’s like a daily thing, oh no, I would be annoyed.”
If homework disappeared tomorrow
So the real question: If schools stripped homework away entirely, what would children gain, and what might they lose?
For Dr. Askri, the honest answer is “both.” “If homework were significantly reduced, I would hope that children would gain something increasingly precious: time,” she says. She would rather her child looks to spend time with family and friends, and just have freedom to decide what to do.
But she stops short of calling for full abolition. “My concern with removing homework entirely would be that children might lose some opportunities to practise important foundational skills and gradually develop responsibility, self-discipline, organisation and independent study habits. These become increasingly important as children progress through school and eventually into higher education. For that reason, I would not necessarily advocate for eliminating homework altogether. I would advocate for purposeful, proportionate and developmentally appropriate homework.”
Gawaran arrives at a similar landing point from the opposite direction. “If homework were reduced, I would want children to use the extra time for meaningful play, family conversations, hobbies, outdoor activities, and rest. These experiences also teach valuable social, emotional, and practical skills. My only concern would be that they might have fewer opportunities to review what they learned in school. However, this could still be supported through reading together and simple learning activities at home, without putting unnecessary pressure on the child.”
The verdict
Nobody we spoke to wants homework banned outright, and nobody wants it piled on for its own sake either. A shared philosophy that cuts across the age gap between a toddler and a teenager on the cusp of exams: less can be more, purpose beats volume, and an evening at home is not just downtime, it is part of the curriculum too.
As Dr. Askri puts it, perhaps the best way to judge any homework assignment is not by asking “How much did my child complete tonight?” but rather, “What did my child gain from doing it?”
