Do you send your kids for tuitions? If so, you’ve got lots of company.
Gen Y has witnessed a tremendous increase in the number of tuition going students and tuition centres throughout India. Busy schedules, increasing workload, the need to provide the best of everything for their children or just following a social trend - Tuitions is something that every child must have. KG students go to tuition to prepare for entrance exams in top schools. Primary and middle school students go to tutitions for Maths and Science to build their "foundation" or just tide over some weak areas. While senior school students go to tuitions to prepare for boards, IITs, medical, CA and the list goes on.
While these tuitions may help to improve grades, it might not be a very good option considering the effects it will have in the long run with regard to the child’s perception of things his willingness to take up responsibility and most importantly – his independence. Here’s why ...
Over Helping:
You heard of Spoon feeding? Bingo..! While the purpose of tuition might be to provide more support, more often than not tuitions end up spoon feeding students. The child is re-taught the same things that are taught in school. The effects are most obvious. The child stops paying attention to what is taught in school because he’s got to do the same again at tuition.
While the purpose of education is to enable one to stand on his own feet, what happens in this method of learning is that it makes the child dependent. He can’t study on his own. Even if he can, he’s got used to letting the tuition teacher plan for him. One may think of the famous proverb-
“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime!”
If tuitions equip students to learn by themselves, then very soon there will be no takers for tuitions.
ONLY exam orientation:
The objectives of the education system is to make a student think, to implement, to apply. But this will not be achieved if we study just to pass our exams well. The hunger of knowledge, the joy of learning is lost when the the tuitions keep track of the types of questions asked, how that pattern changed over the years, how to write in the bullet points so that examiner can read etc. Where is the joy in this? At the end of the day, the student scores more marks and marks today have ceased to be a fool-proof method to evaluate performance or future potential.
Wrong motivation:
What motivates a person to study? Ambition?Passion? Think again..!
More often than not, what drives students is FEAR!! Fear and Peer Pressure. Fear of the tuition teacher and fear of parents on hearing the tuition teacher’s remarks propel the students to work. They develop a negative attitude towards education itself which is supposed to shape a person’s character for life. What will happen when the foundation is weak?
Insufficient time left to be kids:
“All work and no Play makes Jack a Dull Boy”
We might have heard that.. But your child has learnt that. Do we know what it means? Study in school, Study at tuitions, Get back home, finish home work and go to bed. Where is the time for creativity? Where is the time for socializing? When will the dream? When will they just make stories in their heads? Where is the time be a child?
Do kids today lack communication and social skills? Guess we know the reason why..
Not that it is all evil. Some students do need the extra help. But do all the students need these tuitions and coaching classes? Do they need it for absolutely all the subjects under the sun? Need to give a hard thought on the subject.
The bottom line - spend time with your child. Spend time helping them learn. Soon you’ll find you only need to supervise their work. Next comes a stage where they only approach you for doubts. Very soon they stand on their own feet and start getting help themselves. Spark their thought process as much as possible and watch them shine both in academics and in everyday life.
This article was written by our guest author, Mohammad Saqib. Saqib is currently studying chemical engineering at NIT Trichi and enjoys debating about education related topics. You can post your comments below.