Private tuition Mafia and indifferent Education Ministry
From Kindergarten to Grade 13, Religion to Maths, Dawn to Dusk is tuition. Are all our students slow learners, or is our state education a dismal failure?
A physics teacher teaches 500 students, using a megaphone as a teaching aid, and he charges exorbitant fees – handouts, workshop, seminars, past paper classes and many more. Students thinks he is God sent and nobody can replace him. When a baker sells a loaf of bread, one rupee more than the controlled price, there are price control officers to catch him. But a tutor can charge any amount he likes. For instance, in my area, a tutor charged Rs.700, per student, for A/Level paper class. The number of students was around 200 and the time was four hours and the subject was Religion. His earning for the four hours was Rs. 280,000. Even in remote areas, tuition masters drive BMW and Audi.
Tuition fees cost parents an arm and a leg. It is a great burden on the cost of living. Parents sell their only means of livelihood, like fishing boats, and pay tuition fees and transport fees. Tuition culture also promotes drug addiction, sexual abuse and many more crimes because children are neither at home nor in school.
Government spends billions of rupees for school education – free books, free meals, free uniforms, free insurance. Do students get the benefit of it? Mahindodaya laboratories are cattle sheds. My niece has been selected to the University, to follow a course in laboratory medical sciences, and I asked her how many practical tests she had done in the science laboratory. She said ‘none’.
Half a dozen Education Ministers are in the centre, and three quarter dozen are in the periphery. For them, SLAS Special Grade officers are secretaries. Many advisory arms – National Education Commission, National Institute of Education and Education Task Force. But education is in a mess. Last year, 160 teacher trainees (almost the entire primary course teacher trainees), studying at Gopai Government Teachers College, came down in Sinhala. They all have to repeat this subject this year. One year is lost for them. Education Ministry is not worried at all about it. No one is accountable for it either. Accountability is almost zero at the Ministry of Education.
What can the MOE do about tuition?
*Check if the tuitories have the right facilities for the students.
*Limit the number of students in a class.
*Specify the subjects the tuitories can teach. Don’t allow all subjects.
*Specify the days and the times tuitories can conduct classes.
*Decide a maximum tuition fee for a subject.
*Check if the tutors have got the right qualifications to teach. If possible hold an examination and give them the accreditation.
M. A. Kaleel
(The writer is a retired senior teacher educator and holds an MA in TESOL from the University College of London, and he last served as President of National College of Education. kaleelmohammed757@gmail.com)
