Cursive writing losing favour in Bengaluru schools

The art of elegant cursive handwriting is fast disappearing from classrooms in Bengaluru. 

Metrolife spoke to seven city-based handwriting centres. They stressed that cursive writing is crucial for young children. They said it helps improve hand-eye coordination, and children tend to memorise information better when they write something down than when they type on digital devices.

A tutor at a handwriting institute in Vijayanagar said students from classes 1 to 4 are increasingly struggling to write in a continuous flow. She attributes this to shrinking attention spans. A representative from a Nagdevanahalli-based centre added that it now takes months to train children to even begin writing in cursive.

Savitha K, a primary school teacher in Halasuru, says many children struggle to write cursive legibly despite teaching them repeatedly. She blames early exposure to digital devices and speech-to-text tools. “So we let them figure out their own writing style and help them improve it,” she says. Another teacher from the same school said parents often approach her for help with cursive writing, and that she recommends enrolling children in handwriting centres.

Suma, a trainer at Akshara Calligraphy and Handwriting Classes in Koramangala, observes that children struggle with cursive writing because they are not taught handwriting fundamentals correctly early on. “Once the basics are fixed, writing becomes easier and better,” she says, adding that cursive helps children write faster by connecting letters.

However, handwriting and calligraphy expert K C Janardhan disagrees with the push for cursive writing in schools. He argues that it should not be imposed on students. “Today, we expect people to write about 60 words a minute, but legibly, most can manage only 30. How can we expect speed and clarity from a style designed to be written slowly?” he asks. He also questions why cursive is treated as the ‘proper’ writing style when many scripts — Japanese, Thai, Chinese, and Indian languages such as Kannada, Tamil, Hindi, and Sanskrit — use separate strokes. 

Beyond cursive, handwriting itself is declining worldwide, according to reports. Yet Janardhan believes handwriting will never die as long as humans exist. He says it will only change with the medium, “from cave walls to paper, and now to screens and styli”. A trainer from the Handwriting School of India in J P Nagar agrees and argues that “writing is the basis of learning”.