For this writer and many others, perhaps the only option to earn some extra money as a student was to teach junior students. Many of us of my generation have the experience of being a tuition master. However, since the mid 1990s or so more opening began to be available for students to earn money. Even now many students do what is generally known as “tuitioni”. However, most students rely on teachers of established schools for the purpose of helping them with their studies. Apparently, the classes at schools and colleges are not enough. As a matter of fact, many teachers have set up classrooms at their homes and provide coaching. It is almost a given that those who receive coaching from these teachers are entitled to certain benefits–which includes but is not limited to getting a general idea about the questions that they will be asked to answer in the exams.Coaching centres: A question mark on our education system
The idea of a private tutor to coach and cater to the
students� every academic need completely undermines the entire system of education
Syed Mehdi Momin
For this writer and many others, perhaps the only option to earn some extra money as a student was to teach junior students. Many of us of my generation have the experience of being a tuition master. However, since the mid 1990s or so more opening began to be available for students to earn money. Even now many students do what is generally known as tuitioni. However, most students rely on teachers of established schools for the purpose of helping them with their studies. Apparently, the classes at schools and colleges are not enough. As a matter of fact, many teachers have set up classrooms at their homes and provide coaching. It is almost a given that those who receive coaching from these teachers are entitled to certain benefitswhich includes but is not limited to getting a general idea about the questions that they will be asked to answer in the exams.
However, one is not claiming that coaching by teachers is a recent phenomenon. When I was in school and college in the 1980s many teachers coached students to supplement their income. During that time one doesnt remember those who studied at home under a teacher expected extra favours. And those who could not afford getting private tuition could without any hesitation approach any teacher when faced with difficulty understanding a particular topic. If you missed a class for some reason the school and college teachers would be happy to help you out and never expected monetary compensation.
Now the situation is much different to say the least. The concept of private tuition is fast becoming a trend for students. The idea of a private tutor to coach and cater to the students every academic need completely undermines the entire system of education but sadly, it has become a necessity and an established part of the system, according to some parents. For most, the need for private classes arises due to difficulty in comprehending material taught in the classroom and that is usually because of the teachers approach towards the subject. Some teachers at school purposely do not teach anything of value in the classes at school, sometimes glossing over parts of concepts and later, explaining it in full only to the children who come to their houses for private tuition. This is simply unacceptable. More often than not parents are left with no choice but to send their children in for lessons, as beyond a certain point, coaching them on their own becomes impossible. As lessons get more and more complicated, a time comes where the experience and expertise of a qualified teacher is a must to help them cope with studies to get through. This private tuition culture has become like a parasite, feeding on desperate parents fears of their children failing exams and corrupting students of every kind, whether good or bad. Provoked by friends and familys academic achievements, parents have grown to have highly unrealistic expectations and are set on expecting the same from their own children.
Growing culture of private tuition also evokes a question of fairness because those who cannot afford it are being thrown out of competition.
At the same time, private tuition/coaching centres are a blow to the creative method introduced in textbook curriculum. Thanks to the coaching culture, students are getting accustomed to having readymade answers provided by private tutors. It is nibbling at their thinking power. Besides, coaching centres are often found to have been involved in leaking question papers of public exams and admission tests for higher education.
Rote-learning teachers notes which are guaranteed to provide success and poring over old solved examination papers in the hopes that the questions will be repeated are some of the techniques that famed tuition teachers put into action. This vicious cycle leaves no room for students to think for themselves and none for creativity, doing little more than producing narrow-minded, dependent people who, when facing the real world, will have trouble competing with students from other nations who are experienced and driven by their own thoughts and determination to excel and who thrive on creativity and individuality.
Over one-fifth of all primary school students received private tuition in 2000, says Education Watch, a population-based study in Bangladesh. It shot up to 38 percent in 2008 and the percentage kept going higher with higher classes to reach a baffling 80 percent in Class-X. A Bangladesh Bureau of Statistics study in 2006-2007 found a total of 5,499 private coaching centres in the country and only 7 percent of those had government approval. You can easily guess what the situation is in 2016.
The draft Education Law 2016 has provisions for fines and jail terms for schoolteachers who take classes in private coaching centres. However, many experts have expressed doubts as to whether these measures would actually stop teachers from private coaching. We do believe that any teacher has the option to voluntarily retire/resign from service and then uninhibitedly run a tuition business. But they cannot under the service rules simultaneously undertake both public employment and private trade. It is as simple as that.
Private tuition by serving teachers is a serious educational malpractice which requires outright condemnation by all the right-thinking individuals, most of all by serious academicians. Defense of this malaise by any of them is completely unexpected. There is no alternative to classroom teaching. Private coaching has become an alarming situation. Guardians who desperately run to teachers for private coaching for their wards also have to come forward to stop it. Teaching is not like other professions.
Teachers are expected to make themselves available to the students even beyond class hours and help and guide students without any remuneration or reward. And the fact is many teachers actually practice this.
The investment of time and effort in the business of private tuitions naturally leaves teachers with little energy or inclination for regular class teaching. One needs to investigate as to when and how these teachers find time to update themselves in the latest developments in their respective subjects, add to their scholarship, conduct and encourage original research and hone their skills of analysis, interpretation and appraisal. If a teacher were to honestly engage himself in these academic pursuits, he would surely have no time for mass tuitions.
Those trying to justify the racket of tuitions should remember instances of teachers manipulating examination duties with a view to actively assisting students receiving private tuition. Whoever adopts teaching as a profession assumes the obligation to conduct himself in accordance with the ideals of the profession. A teacher is constantly under the scrutiny of his students and the society at large. Therefore, every teacher should see that there is no incompatibility between his precepts and practice.
The ludicrous claim made by some that tuitions are being given only for competitive exams and entrance tests is false and untenable. The tendency, on the part of the teacher, to earn extra fast buck has percolated to all levels of education. College lecturers have come down to giving mass tuitions to school students. The school teachers are also a part of the whole arrangement. In fact, parents are now being advised to send the child for extra tuition right from class-I. It was indeed sad to hear a friend narrate an incident about a poor vendor who, under pressure from the class teacher, was shelling out Taka 400 a month on private tuition of his son studying in class-IV in a private school in the capital.
To blame the ill of private tuitions on inadequate investment or lack of infrastructure in educational institutions is being myopic. Education is not only about brick and mortar, it rests almost entirely on the devotion and dedication of the teacher. Ironically, it is in urban centres and metropolis with well-equipped educational institutions that the menace of tuitions has spread its tentacles the most. The fact of the matter is that private tuitions are being imparted in appalling conditions and far-from-ideal environment. We need to remind ourselves that even the loftiest institutions decline when individuals charged with taking them forward turn indifferent to their duties. The standards of education would continue to deteriorate if the standards of conduct amongst the educationists continue to suffer dilution.
Before the tuition craze set root into our system, students made the extra effort of staying back after class to ask questions and teachers provided remedial classes that were part of the school system and not an additional activity.
Private coaching may seem to many as the easiest way out. However, it needs to be realised that what may seem like the easiest way out may not be the best in the long run after all.
The writer is Assistant Editor of The Independent and can be contacted at: [email protected]
