Saturday 24 March 2018

The Tuition Trend

"Chhori, tuition padhna jane bela bhayo! Chhito thik para,” I heard my neighbour shouting at her 5 year old daughter, Laxmi, who had come back from her school hardly about an hour ago. I was amused to learn about the little girl’s daily tuition.

Out of curiosity, I called Laxmi to my place the next morning. I asked her what she was leaning at school. She immediately replied, “A, B, C, D…” Then I wrote A, B, C, D…down in the exercise book and asked her to read them aloud. Without looking at the letters she mechanically recited them. Then I pointed at them randomly and asked her to tell me what letter I was showing. She stared at me blankly. Laxmi, who goes to a private school every day and in addition takes tuition regularly, cannot even recognise the initial letters of the alphabet. 
It is not only Laxmi who suffers this way; there are a lot of children in our community who share Laxmi’s fate. 
What is more troublesome is that schools themselves recommend parents to send their young children to additional tutoring; the teachers who teach at the schools are also the ones that offer additional tuition. 
I wonder what those teachers teach the whole day at school if they must again invite the young children to take tuition from them. There is a worldwide debate regarding primary school children being given homework. Our schools are busy giving students the extra burden of tuition on the top of lengthy homework.

A lot of research studies suggest that primary school students do not need homework as such because what they learn in school is enough for them at this stage. In addition, they spend long hours at school, so they need to spend some quality time at home after school. They may want to spend their time with parents or they may want to play with their friends or whatever else. The crucial point is that they must have some free time.
In my opinion, this private tuition trend, particularly for young children, is an extra financial burden on parents and an unnecessary barrier between young children and quality time away from rigorous academic study. If teachers cannot teach what they have been expected to teach at school itself, then what’s the use of sticking to that profession? They must realise that they are not made for teaching and look for other options. 

These days, children’s independent learning skills have been emphasised. Schools must be able to prepare independent learners in a way that helps them become life-long learners as well. Independent learning is possible when an individual is able to think, act and pursue their own studies autonomously, without the same levels of support they receive from a teacher at school. In this scenario, what is the feasibility of private tuition?

Osama Sajid is absolutely correct when he says, “After-school tuitions are a handicap…Once a child develops the habit of getting spoon fed by tuition teachers, his intellectual abilities begin to decline. He no longer strives to find solutions to the problems he faces in his studies, but instead looks towards the aid he expects to receive in the evening,” after school.

(Published in an English Daily The Rising Nepal on Friday, March 16, 2018 
[The pictures on this blog are posted here with permission from their owners or have been gathered from various sources on the Internet. If you are the copyright-holder to any of the photographs herein do not hesitate to contact me. They will be swiftly removed if desired so.]



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I would appreciate any and all suggestions on making improvements (as long as they are viable).