Read in the NST today (24 December 2005, Front page, pgs. 4 & 5) that parents in Malaysia are sending their chidren to tuition classes that has been calculated to amount to RM4.3 billion a month. Holy ravioli .. and this is economy being handled via the teachers, a loop perhaps punctuatd by purchases of cars, renovation of house and overseas holidays. On any scale, this concept has existed for as long as I can remember.
However, there are two pertinent issues that has cropped up that I feel will remain with us forever more. Firstly, schoolchildren do not receive the attention they need to fully understand the subjects they study, largely because of the teacher-student ratio. A professional tutor, who teaches Mathematics, Science and English, said teachers take only one approach to teach a class of about 40 students. Hmm .. this is hitting the nail on the head, and it will continue no doubt. We talk about the fact that different students have different cognitive levels, study at a different rate and with different modalities and different pedagogical needs. Yet the class addresses ALL students in the SAME way and EXPECT all the students to get an 'A'.
Secondly, and this is the astonishing part, a tuition teacher said that, 'parents are oriented towards examination results and can be kiasu.' Hello ... is this guy from another planet. Parents are examination oriented? Is he trying to say that an average student with a bunch of A, B and Cs can get into a good school? Is this person for real? Parents nowadays have NO CHOICE but to try and ensure that their chidren get the best grades possible with the hope of getting them into good schools, selected and boarding schools. This is what is practised by our education system. It is the education systems that are EXAMINATION oriented. Aiyaa, tak tau lah ...
|
Enjoyed a lot! » »