August 28, 2003

Tuition culture has developed into a parallel system of education. Neda Mulji analyzes why this is so, and how detrimental it is for students in the long run

Fourteen-year-old Aanya comes home from school at 2:00 pm, washes up, gobbles down her lunch and sets off for English language tuitions where she is expected at 3:00 pm. In her hour-long tuition session, the teacher will help her through the next day’s homework, and prepare her for an upcoming test.

At 4:00 pm she packs up and heads for mathematics tuitions. Here she will complete her homework and practice sums so that she doesn’t lag behind when they are discussed in class the next day. After an hour and a half of mathematics, she sets off for home.

She has exactly half an hour to have a snack, and play with her five-year-old sister until the Koran teacher appears to make another claim on her time. By the time she finishes with her day’s work it is time to have dinner and say good night.

On a typical week day, Aanya spends no time outdoors, sharing a few laughs with her family, or chit-chatting with friends. The only time she spends with her friends is during recess in school, or during class time while the teachers are badgering her to be quiet. Sometimes she ‘steals’ time with her friends by chatting with them on MSN once her parents are sure she is fast asleep in her bedroom.

Does she feel that the relentless hours spent with private tutors are worth the effort? “No,” says Aanya, “I hate tuitions but my parents force me to go. The only good thing about tuitions is that my teacher sometimes does my homework for me when I am very tired.” And who gets the marks for the homework done by your tuition teacher? “I do, of course,” she says with a triumphant smile.

Not only does Aanya fail to learn in the process, but her moral values are also adversely affected when a tuition teacher completes her homework in a bid to achieve immediate targets — that is — marks.

Abbas Husain of the Teachers’ Development Centre feels that as long as we focus on preparing students for a set of exams, we cannot hope to break away from this kind of teacher dependence. Instead of fostering a culture of cooperation, we encourage cut-throat competition when we ask them for quantifiable results on pieces of paper.

If we were to teach cooperation in a classroom we would spiral out of this teacher dependence. “The learners should begin to believe that they can learn by themselves and with each other, and from each other,” he says.

The recent successful sprouting of private tuitions seems to reflect the professional inadequacy of our education system. Surely there are serious pitfalls in delivery that necessitate a support system — in the form of private tuitions — which in itself is far from perfect.

In most schools teachers are bound by time constraints. They are instructed to rush through a set syllabus which forms the thrust of the quantifiable targets by which their ability is judged at the end of the academic term. Failure to complete the course is equated with incompetence and taken to reflect ill-planning or lack of organization on the part of the teacher.

On the other hand, a teacher who does manage to complete the course, assign a series of written assignments, and conduct the requisite number of tests is lauded as efficient and appreciated by the school administration. Furthermore, if her classes are disciplined (that is, there is a negligible amount of noise during class time) she is perceived as nothing less than exemplary.

However, if one scratches the surface of such seemingly ‘model’ class management, one finds that nearly half the number of students in the class are taking private tuitions. The noise level is kept low because, “The learners are not interrupting or disturbing the teacher, but really there is no learning taking place,” observes Abbas Husain.

It is not sufficient for a teacher to understand her subject and communicate it to the students. It is essential for her to be equipped with the skills necessary to impart her knowledge through constructive, step-by-step strategies that will develop the students’ creative, analytical and problem-solving abilities.

In a typical six-hour school day students are crammed with four to eight subjects. Teachers hop from three to six classes. Neither the students nor the teachers manage to invest true commitment into the work that is expected of them in a day.

As a result, some teachers choose to stoop to superficial instruction during class time, knowing that they will make up for the inadequate effort when the students turn up for tuitions later in the day.

Perhaps if we had a full-day school system, teachers who under-utilize their capabilities would feel compelled to improve their skills if they had to stay back. By virtue of greater time and effort, full-day schools may actually help ‘absorb’ the proliferating tuition culture.

Another reason why private tuitions have thrived over the years is that they provide a ‘comfort bubble’ to students who feel threatened in a classroom situation. “My class mates give funny looks and the teacher loses patience if I ask stupid questions, or the same question thrice,” says Anushka Jatoi, an O’ level student. “In school I feel that I’m being judged all the time, and I’m always afraid that the teacher may make a humiliating remark. At tuitions everyone asks all kinds of questions, so you don’t stand out.”

With a stress on quick (but not necessarily effective) learning, the classroom atmosphere sets out stringent expectations against which the students systematically learn to guard themselves. Private tuitions may be doing a great disservice to our education system, but they have managed to cultivate an encouraging and reassuring system of learning through gentle nudging rather than competitive strictures.

Mikael Khan, a seventeen-year-old student, says, “Although tuitions are a time-consuming hassle, we don’t have a choice because our teachers are not good enough and there’s so much competition.”

Sumbul Mazhar agrees with Mikael, “At tuitions everyone gets individual attention, and things that appear confusing in school suddenly make perfect sense.” What is this magic wand that tuition teachers wave that teachers in schools are not equipped with?

“Teachers don’t take the time out to answer questions during their lectures,” says Zahra Ahmad. “Everyone can study but only a few of us know how to tackle questions.” Why do schools fail to cater to these urgent needs?

“Schools don’t spare the time to develop studying habits,” says a private tutor. “Teachers do an unfinished job by explaining all that there is in a text book. They don’t spare time for thorough revision, nor do they explain the reasoning behind principles. For example, when students come to me for help with mathematics I find that they can [mechanically] follow the steps they are taught, but if you introduce a twist in the problem, they falter.”

The tutor’s observation relates to Howard Gardner’s lecture at the 1997 Wisconsin Education Association Council. Gardner, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education told participants, “Successful education does not require covering everything from Plato to NATO. The greatest enemy of understanding is coverage. If we try to cover everything, by the end of the day people will have learned very little and understood nothing.”

Gardner’s remarks highlight the presence of a stark vacuum in education systems. Rather than nurturing thinking ability, they train or discipline minds to fulfill exam requirements, which implies that the knowledge gained remains external and cannot be used to make connections for any purpose other than the one for which the skill was taught.

In her book Seeking Diversity, Linda Rief recalls the heart-warming words of one of her students: “When I’m reading a book I really can’t understand, the words on the paper don’t mean anything.” And yet, our students are expected to reproduce something they haven’t ‘really’ understood.

Private tuitions step in to create an illusion of ‘understanding’ by helping the students become experts at reproducing. In doing so, they further the vacuum already created by the schools. “My parents send me for tuitions, but I keep telling them I end up more confused,” says Hasan Aftab, a twelve-year-old student. There is a disparity between methods taught at school, and the ones drilled by the tuition teacher. Consequently, the student learns at school, and then goes for tuitions to ‘unlearn’ and ‘relearn’.

There are other ways in which private tuitions interfere with the formal education system. “I don’t pay attention in school,” says Sumbul Hussain, “Because I know I’ll do the same thing again at tuitions.” In effect, Sumbul invests three hours in trying to understand a thing that should take an hour of quality time.

Often students do not operate at their optimal capacity during school hours and are, consequently, forced to give up precious entertainment hours that are sacrificed at tuition centers. However, “Tuitions are very entertaining,” says Abdullah Yousuf, “I get to meet all my friends, and [unlike school] I don’t have to wait till recess to talk to them. Besides, our tutor treats us to pizzas and ice-cream, so it’s like one big party.”

Perhaps schools don’t provide the relaxed, warm and friendly environment that tuitions do. Teachers get trapped in the endless spiral of drilling information and testing students on it, and in the process they may forget that teaching demands a lot of patience, humour and love.

If a teacher fails to build a rapport with a class she may find herself teetering on the brink, and resort to survival strategies throughout the year. The students are ‘stuck’ with such a teacher and don’t have a choice in the matter.

However, they are in a position to select a good private tutor who will cater to their specific needs, someone with whom they can have a strong and comforting rapport. In performing such a role the private tutor acts as a ‘buffer’, who will shield the students against a teacher that is perceived as a failure.

As the students begin to work with the tutor, their expectations of the school teacher decline considerably, and so does their level of cooperation with her. They may not be interested in listening to her explanations, or answering her questions for they can rest assured that the tutor will prepare them for the calamitous exams ahead. After all, the tutor is answerable to the demanding parents and will molly-coddle the child to any extent required. In this way the school loses credibility and falls prey to a parallel system of education that assumes success by satisfying immediate goals, without much regard for a long-term vision.

Many individuals start giving private tuitions while in the employment of a school. If they have an affiliation with an ‘up-market’ school to speak of, their clientele base increases rapidly as word gets around.

Multiple tiers of schools divide our society into groups that are distinguished by the income bracket they serve. Private tutors that gain popularity through their affiliation with a particular school become responsible for further dividing the society into groups of ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots’.

Parents who can afford the fees charged by the much-coveted private tutors indirectly manage to ‘buy’ better results for their children. An ever-ready clientele implies that a whole market of private tutors continues to flourish without sufficient checks and balances.

The demand for private tutors seems to be increasing as rapidly as competition intensifies in schools. Aneesa Alam, whose two children have been going to private tutors for the past five years, says, “I realize that the combination of school and tuitions imposes an enormous workload on my children. But what’s the alternative? I have to send them for tuitions so that they keep up with the competition in class.”

Parents do what they feel is best for the child within the parameters of expectations set by the schools. If they wish to pull their child out of a school whose academic policies and strategies they are dissatisfied with — they may not have a choice — for they might find an alternative school but not a different system. Some schools appear more progressive than others by virtue of the academic opportunities they offer, but scratch the surface and the core remains the same.

Q. How can the education system hope to break away from this dependence?

A. It can be broken through a process (developing creative/analytical ability) approach to learning, as opposed to a product approach, which focuses on exams as the ultimate goal. The product approach makes society much more competitive as students realize they have too much at stake. A piece of paper becomes important to the education process, while the students do not relate what they learn to their own lives.
 

Q. In which other ways do private tuitions interfere with the formal education system?

A. (They encroach upon the students’ time.) Once I asked a group of students (at college) why they were cutting class, and they said they wanted a free period before the end of the day as they’ll be going for tuitions right after college hours.— N.M.

Q. Why do you think teachers fail to deliver what is required of them?

A. (Primarily) they are bound by time. They rush through a course because students have to be prepared for a set of exams. Many teachers don’t make an effort in school, and end up giving tuitions after school. If we had full-day schools mediocre teachers would have no choice but to become better, because they would be staying back and working with the students.
 

Q. What role can schools play to help absorb this tuition culture?

A. Training is crucial to equip teachers to deal with certain contradictions that they face in the class environment:

* Classrooms are crowded, yet students are often not allowed to interact.

* Students are expected to work together harmoniously, yet they may not know or like each other.

* Students are urged to cooperate, yet they often work in individual or competitive situations.

* Students are encouraged to be independent, yet they are often also expected to conform to the teacher’s dictates.

* Students are instructed to work slowly and carefully, but they have to be aware of the ‘press of time’ in a 40 (or an 80) minute period. Often, teachers are not skilled enough to deal with these contradictions. Private tutors can sidestep these contradictions because they don’t have to manage classroom dynamics.— N.M.

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