The Real Reason Why We Send Our Children to Tuition
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Agree that teachers nowadays are a busy lot.
We are privileged to come across those who drop little notes of encouragement on every written piece of work, most personalised to that particular assignment. These teachers are gems! -
Dilbert_A1:
Thanks for this post.The real reasons why you need tuition:
a) teacher-student ratio in school is simply too big.
The average ratio is roughly one teacher to 40 students.
If a teacher teaches 5 different classes, then the teacher has to handle about 200 different students each day.
In a primary school, if the teacher teachers both EL and Math, then the teacher has to mark about 80 sheets of homework each day. If a class has 40 pupils, and your teacher spends about 5 minutes to mark each compo or homework, then your teacher has to spend about 200 minutes to mark one class worth of homework for that particular day.
If your typical kiasu parent wants the teacher to give homework every single day, then the teacher needs to set aside 200 minutes a day just to finish marking the homework.
b) Your school teachers are too busy with their non-teaching duties.
All full-time MOE teachers are too busy to be teachers. They have to run CCAs, take part in school projects, science competition, do Action Research projects, and other school projects. This is not counting handling the normal discipline cases and dealing with parents who demand this and that, especially primary school parents.
Not to mention all the office politics, due to MOE system having an inofficial quota to penalize 5% of the teachers each year with 'D' or 'C-' work reviews. Such a system encourages back-stabbing and politicking. No big deal, you might say, since some of you politick even more in your own workplace. But you should ask yourself if you want your kids to be educated by adults who act professional in front of you but backstab and politick like crazy behind your backs?
MOE also set the performance review such that teachers who focus on teaching only will be penalized professionally. So, the teachers learn their lesson and divert attention from teaching.
If your child's teacher spends her afternoons on CCA and meetings and project work, it means the teacher won't be spending time to prepare for the classroom lessons or marking assignment.
I have teacher friends in uniformed groups who burn weekends on leadership camps, and the following Monday is a school day. Homework is not yet marked, lessons for the following week is not prepared. How to prepare, when the teacher has to run around with the students at some remote camp site? So, the weekly lesson is prepared within 10-20 minutes, and the teacher relies on superior content knowledge to carry the lesson through.
The problem is made worse when schools plan their activities around the basis that teachers are expected to bring home their work on a daily basis.
If the school demands that your child's teacher not 'waste' school hours on 'non-productive' work such as marking and preparing lessons, then your child's teacher has to bring all these work home to be done on her own private time.
But many teachers need their private time to take care of kids. You really think most teachers are so free to moonlight as tutors? Just because you can name one or two, it doesn't mean that half the school staff is moonlighting as tutors.
Teachers who moonlight as tutors basically are teachers fed up with the system. Fed up of the school always making them put teaching as second priority, and all non-teaching duties as more urgent and more important. You really think your average school teacher is twiddling thumbs or have lots of free time to update facebook status?
MOE has indirectly clammed down on teachers moonlighting by assigning more and more work across the board. Meaningful or not is not important. More important to keep the teachers overloaded and burnt out, so that they would be too busy and too tired to think.
Why do you think so many teachers want to quit and give tuition? Tuition is a low-entry barrier industry. Even a student waiting to do NS or some undergrad can do it. Most teachers who give tuition are prepared to take a pay cut and accept some job instability due to competition or chao-kuan parents who delay tuition after week 3 to delay payment. But it is worth it, in return for a better quality of life.
In short, your child needs tuition because your school teachers are too busy and too tired to teach well. If that is that case, then you need someone to do the teacher's job for them.
Private tuition, by the way, only started to flourish since the 2000s, around the same time when MOE introduced the ranking system, to pit teacher against teacher, to make them compete with each other. So, when your child does well, do you think it reflects more of the efforts of the school, or more on the thousands of dollars you spent on private tuition?
It's very sad that most of the teachers are saddled with loads of work.
Many are parents, yet they hardly have time and energy for their own kids.
These teachers have to outsource their own kids to tutors. -
Whenever the newspapers talk about tuition, they like to point fingers at kiasu parents.
While some parents are overly competitive, but for the vast majority of students, many of them need tuition because they are weak and cannot keep up with the rigour. The problem is bad because of a high teacher-student ratio, and also by schools/MOE/school leaders who demand teachers do more and more.
Many teachers over the years brought up these problems to HQ before, but the top people keep repeating that class size is not the main factor. Main factor is the quality of teacher, and they proceed to make teachers attend more workshops on how to handle 40 kids in a class.
So, the cost of education is basically passed to parents, who have to employ tutors to help their own kids.
Many parents jump through hoops to ensure their kids go to top primary and secondary schools. But let me ask you lah, if the school is so fantastic, then why do you still need to send your kid for tuition? To secure the A1, to be the top 10%, or because cannot keep up? Again, if the school is that good, then why does your kid have problem meeting all those expectations?
And what makes that school so fantastic? If you parents hadn’t sent your kid to tuition, do you think your kid would have made it on his/her own? Or, is it the school that is really fantastic, or because at the end of the day, you have a tutor doing all the backstage work to help propel your kid to the distinction?
A truly fantastic school is a school that takes in weak students and turns them around. Any average school can take in students with PSLE t-score 250 and produce lots of As. It has reached a point where the line is blurred, and a good school is simply a school that banks on its past reputation to become a country club for already-good students. The already-good students produces good graduation results as expected, and top students from PSLE proceed to apply to study in this ‘top’ secondary school.
Very few schools around today are good schools - take in weak students and turn them into fantastic students. Everyone wants ready-made good students. Which also explains why some tuition centres give entry exams - easier to ‘guarantee’ good results when the raw talent of the child is already above average.
Many teachers I know see how bad the education system is. But they are led by scholars and civil servants who mostly are not teachers before. So, they don’t know the real problems on the ground. Maybe they know, but choose to ignore it.
Most teachers, even those who moonlight as tutors, if given the choice, would rather not moonlight. They would rather see a much improved education system where less students need tuition. Everything has a cost, including giving tuition. Tuition is done in the evening, at the expense of rest and family time. And if the school manages its system well, teachers shouldn’t even be bringing work home to do. Teachers bring work home because the school operates under the belief that marking and lesson preparation are of lesser priority and should be done at home, at the expense of the teacher’s family and rest time. -
Dilbert_A1:
Whenever the newspapers talk about tuition, they like to point fingers at kiasu parents.
Media makes parents to be kiasu...that's why we need tuition.
While some parents are overly competitive, but for the vast majority of students, many of them need tuition because they are weak and cannot keep up with the rigour. The problem is bad because of a high teacher-student ratio, and also by schools/MOE/school leaders who demand teachers do more and more.
Many teachers over the years brought up these problems to HQ before, but the top people keep repeating that class size is not the main factor. Main factor is the quality of teacher, and they proceed to make teachers attend more workshops on how to handle 40 kids in a class.
In a class of 40, every child is different...one cannot expect all to be able to understand what the teacher teaches...some are faster, so they grasp but the slower ones need a little more detailed explanation.
So, the cost of education is basically passed to parents, who have to employ tutors to help their own kids. :goodpost:
Many parents jump through hoops to ensure their kids go to top primary and secondary schools. But let me ask you lah, if the school is so fantastic, then why do you still need to send your kid for tuition? To secure the A1, to be the top 10%, or because cannot keep up? Again, if the school is that good, then why does your kid have problem meeting all those expectations?
And what makes that school so fantastic? If you parents hadn't sent your kid to tuition, do you think your kid would have made it on his/her own? Or, is it the school that is really fantastic, or because at the end of the day, you have a tutor doing all the backstage work to help propel your kid to the distinction?
Hey, you are really amazing...you took the words out my mind.
A truly fantastic school is a school that takes in weak students and turns them around. Any average school can take in students with PSLE t-score 250 and produce lots of As. It has reached a point where the line is blurred, and a good school is simply a school that banks on its past reputation to become a country club for already-good students. The already-good students produces good graduation results as expected, and top students from PSLE proceed to apply to study in this 'top' secondary school.
Very few schools around today are good schools - take in weak students and turn them into fantastic students. Everyone wants ready-made good students. Which also explains why some tuition centres give entry exams - easier to 'guarantee' good results when the raw talent of the child is already above average.
Many teachers I know see how bad the education system is. But they are led by scholars and civil servants who mostly are not teachers before. So, they don't know the real problems on the ground. Maybe they know, but choose to ignore it.
Most teachers, even those who moonlight as tutors, if given the choice, would rather not moonlight. They would rather see a much improved education system where less students need tuition. Everything has a cost, including giving tuition. Tuition is done in the evening, at the expense of rest and family time. And if the school manages its system well, teachers shouldn't even be bringing work home to do. Teachers bring work home because the school operates under the belief that marking and lesson preparation are of lesser priority and should be done at home, at the expense of the teacher's family and rest time. -
Dilbert A1,
U r right. The teachers don’t have much time to prepare for classes, esp those with young families, but lacking experience. Some also lack teaching pedagogy. My son told me I can just pull him out of school, he will score the same because everything he knows he has learnt from me. I do feel he is wasting his time in school with his current teacher, but I keep that thought to myself.
But I like his Chinese teacher this year and last. I think Chinese teachers are better at teaching because they are more like "specialists". -
ammonite:
Teachers need to prepare lesson plans before stepping into class...or else there is no system in place what is to be taught. A lesson plan is VERY important.Dilbert A1,
U r right. The teachers don't have much time to prepare for classes, esp those with young families, but lacking experience. Some also lack teaching pedagogy.
Once, my girl told me for EL homework, it was to write a draft of pic compo...so I told her to get it done...but she told me she didn't know how to...I asked her several times if teacher taught and her answer is NO.
Her Eng teacher is fresh out of NIE...she simply gave the class a sample of what a draft should be...and use that as an example...that's IT !!! So does that mean parents have to teach ourselves ?
So if she doesn't teach and parents like myself do not know how to teach, what does this spell ? BTW, there is CA1 next week for Eng and students will be tested on writing picture compo. -
My P4 student told me that he was asked to do only 1 picture compo in the last 2-3 months. I’m really curious about what the teacher teaches during their English lesson.
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TheAnswer:
My P4 student told me that he was asked to do only 1 picture compo in the last 2-3 months. I'm really curious about what the teacher teaches during their English lesson.
i am panicking when i think of daughter's english CA1 next wed.
how is she going to pass it when teacher only gave a draft to the class and tell them to use as a reference :slapshead:
this is the reason why we HAVE TO send our children to tuition. -
My P4 student takes English, Maths and Science tuition from me. To my surprise, he told me that there is no CA1 for Maths and English. For science, only 1 small test. Nevertheless, I’m still pushing him to study ahead, who knows if the school might spring a surprise. If no surprise, we treat it as revising for mid year exams.
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TheAnswer:
My P4 student takes English, Maths and Science tuition from me. To my surprise, he told me that there is no CA1 for Maths and English. For science, only 1 small test. Nevertheless, I'm still pushing him to study ahead, who knows if the school might spring a surprise. If no surprise, we treat it as revising for mid year exams.
CA1 CA2 are for P5 & P6. P3 & P4 will only have SA1 & SA2.
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