ngl2010:

Hi. I am neither a teacher nor a tutor. I am just a parent.


There are bad teachers and also bad tutors. There are also good teachers and good tutors. I have seen all of them. You cannot generalize them.

Let's calm down. These arguments won't get us anywhere.

Agreed.

I wrote what I wrote not to support or condemn teachers, tutors or parents who send kids for tuition. I only want to do due justice and highlight the problems in the system, which is often not mentioned due to ignorance from the public, or that the problems in the system is deliberately covered up.

The newspapers are doing parents, children, teachers and tutors a grave injustice by labeling most kids who go for tuition as kiasu or parents too caught up with the paper chase.

As I wrote in a few posts, that sort of generalization is hugely inaccurate, and does not represent the majority of kids who need tuition. Heads would roll in MOE HQ and in the schools should the newspapers make public what is really happening in the school and how distracted teachers are from teaching and educating.

rains:

Parents have every right to know what's going on in order to provide support for their children, but questioning someone's professionalism and competence is quite different from genuinely wanting to know what's going on.


A friend told me that during a meet-the-parents session, a rude parent 'asked' him,\"Is it because the teachers are very lazy, that's why you all don't do compos on a weekly basis?\"

If you are a teacher and a parent tells that right into your face, would you think that's a genuine question?

And she's just a lowly-educated housewife.

I once heard a retired teacher say this:

In the past, teachers are gods;
Now, teachers are dogs.

Here is why teachers don't do compos on a weekly basis:

It takes a teacher around 5-10 minutes to grade one compo properly. In a class of 40 students, it would take at least 200 minutes (nearly 3 hours) to finish marking the compo.

And that is only for one class. Most teachers teach at least 4 different classes in secondary schools, or teach the same class 3 subjects in primary school.

As such, homework given out has to be controlled strictly. If not, the teacher would be overwhelmed by all the marking.

And btw, schools have inofficially mandated that marking of homework is of lesser priority. This can be seen by the school's taking up of the teacher's time through meetings, CCAs and various school projects. Schools operate on the basis that teachers are expected to work 10 hours a day at least in school, and another 2-3 hours from home every weekday, and probably another 2-3 hours over every weekend.

I bet your school never told you all these during PTM.

Beautyful Minds:

Dilbert_A1:

You should have a good talk with your daughter's teachers, not to find fault, but rather, to discover for yourself the challenges the teacher is facing. That piece of info is very crucial, somewhat like the missing part of a jigsaw puzzle.


A beginning teacher usually has no resources and has to develop from scratch. Many more experienced teachers often are not willing to share, simply because of a ranking system in school that encourages competition rather than cooperation. So, the quality of the notes may differ from teacher to teacher. Not all schools use standardized teaching materials across the board.

Even if a teacher is experienced, the teacher is very distracted. Admin work is just one part. There are department projects, CCA, competition, school plays, science projects, Action Research thesis/projects.

If you really want your child's teacher to improve dramatically on quality of teaching, talk to the principal and school leaders. Tell them to stop pressuring their teachers to do more in order to score points for promotion and performance bonus. Tell them to save the crap of 'all-rounded' education.

Everyone has the same 24 hours a day. If the teacher spends more time on CCA and other school projects, it simply means that the teacher will spend less time on marking, lesson preparation and remedial. In school, the phrase 'time management' simply means bring the work home to do.

Just for your info, turnover rate is high, despite outsiders envying teachers as having 'iron rice bowl'. If you want your school teachers to teach better so that you can spend less on tuition, then you need to apply pressure on the school leaders and get them to focus on teaching, and stop the wayang.

BTW, when Minister Heng said he wanted to focus more on moral education and less on results, it simply means teachers have to set aside more time to plan and draft more Civics Education lesson packages. There is no reduction in other workload.

As parents, you would ask yourself if the school system (including top primary and secondary) is so good, why do you need to spend so much on tuition still?

I hope I shed some light on what is happening on in the schools. Most teachers would really want to focus on teaching. But circumstances and higher powers decided otherwise.

That's very insightful, are you a teacher?

Let's just say I got a lot of inside info.

Key problem is that there are too many demands made on the same teacher. The demands can be met, but it means cutting on quality. Regardless of how much you pay teachers, teachers are humans, not God.

If you make someone do too many different things, quality has to go down because time is spread out more thinly over all the different matters. Time management can only help so much.

A less qualified tutor can often teach better than a more qualified teacher. The main reason is because the tutor needs only to focus on teaching, while for the teacher, teaching is only one of the many duties. And given the current trend in schools, it is gradually becoming not the most important duty anymore.

Most teachers I know of, personally or casual acquaintances, spend a lot more time on their CCA and various school projects than they do on marking and lesson preparation. So, kids have to fend for themselves more and more, or fork out money for tuition.

You should have a good talk with your daughter's teachers, not to find fault, but rather, to discover for yourself the challenges the teacher is facing. That piece of info is very crucial, somewhat like the missing part of a jigsaw puzzle.


A beginning teacher usually has no resources and has to develop from scratch. Many more experienced teachers often are not willing to share, simply because of a ranking system in school that encourages competition rather than cooperation. So, the quality of the notes may differ from teacher to teacher. Not all schools use standardized teaching materials across the board.

Even if a teacher is experienced, the teacher is very distracted. Admin work is just one part. There are department projects, CCA, competition, school plays, science projects, Action Research thesis/projects.

If you really want your child's teacher to improve dramatically on quality of teaching, talk to the principal and school leaders. Tell them to stop pressuring their teachers to do more in order to score points for promotion and performance bonus. Tell them to save the crap of 'all-rounded' education.

Everyone has the same 24 hours a day. If the teacher spends more time on CCA and other school projects, it simply means that the teacher will spend less time on marking, lesson preparation and remedial. In school, the phrase 'time management' simply means bring the work home to do.

Just for your info, turnover rate is high, despite outsiders envying teachers as having 'iron rice bowl'. If you want your school teachers to teach better so that you can spend less on tuition, then you need to apply pressure on the school leaders and get them to focus on teaching, and stop the wayang.

BTW, when Minister Heng said he wanted to focus more on moral education and less on results, it simply means teachers have to set aside more time to plan and draft more Civics Education lesson packages. There is no reduction in other workload.

As parents, you would ask yourself if the school system (including top primary and secondary) is so good, why do you need to spend so much on tuition still?

I hope I shed some light on what is happening on in the schools. Most teachers would really want to focus on teaching. But circumstances and higher powers decided otherwise.

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.

The real reasons why your kids 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?

School papers are better, as they are set by teachers who have a better sense of O-level exam standards.


School exam papers also tend to be tougher than the actual O-level exams.