CONSUMER CONCERNS: PHASING OUT THE PRIVATE LESSON SYSTEM

Oct 07, 2018 Consumer Concerns, Features / Columnists, News

by PAT DIAL

The subject of Education is of perennial concern to parents and consumers as a whole. It is acutely so at the beginning of the school year and continues throughout the first term of school. There are a variety of problems which confront parents: trying to find a suitable school for their children since all schools are not regarded as equally good; cost of equipping children for school including clothes and books; pocket money; transport to and from school; and private lessons.

In this offering, the focus will be on private lessons. Until the last generation, private lessons were unknown in the school system at both the primary and secondary levels. Today, it is the norm. Parents feel that their children would never perform well at school except they have private lessons.

Private lessons are a great financial burden on parents, especially at the secondary level. The fees many private tutors require are often well beyond what the majority of parents could comfortably afford. Indeed, some tutors state their fees in US dollars! Parents may even have to borrow money to meet such extra fees.

This private lesson system also has sinister social consequences since it favours the richer and better-off children while the children from poorer homes are left behind. Generally, poorer children are no less able than their wealthier class mates, thus this system emphasizes class differences and causes intellectual waste.

The contrast could be clear if we compare secondary schools of the past with the present. At Central High School or Queen’s College, for example, until the private lesson system made its appearance, the students did as well as they do today.

In the case of Queen’s College, the boys, and it was then a boys’ school, would be involved in sports, the cadet corps, physical exercise and in various clubs. Yet their academic results were always good and the vast majority of boys coming out of Queens in those days made their mark in whatever profession or occupation they entered, both at home and abroad.

And it must be remembered that Queens was open to any child whose parents would have decided to send him there. It was not a school which selected the best performers at the primary level as obtains today. The experience of old Queen’s College evidences that private lessons are not necessary for a student to do well.

Private lessons are not only a financial burden on parents, they have negative effects on children. Those children who cannot afford private lessons feel a sense of humiliation and indeed inferiority. In the private lesson system, the child immediately has to go to the tutor as soon as school dismisses and spends the next two or three hours with the tutor.

Sometimes classes are held at 6 o’clock in the morning to eight just in time for the child to attend regular school. This system takes away their childhood from children. They are precluded from being involved in sports and other childhood activity and denied the opportunity of cultivating a broader circle of friends.

Childhood, to many who graduate from the private lesson system, is not a happy memory and there are little memories that they could treasure. The denial of childhood could have serious effects on personality.

The majority of serious educationists, parents and children are aware that the private lesson syndrome is a serious blemish on Guyana’s Education System but no one has been able to escape its net. The only way the Education System could free itself from this blemish is by concerted action by all stakeholders.

In the first place, the Ministry of Education should let it be known that it will not tolerate private lessons as now constituted. In this process, the school curricula will have to include compulsory after school recreational activity such as cadet corps or field games. It would also mean closer assessment of teachers in the classroom will have to be undertaken.

It is well known that many teachers do not teach during school hours but give private lessons in the same subjects they should have taught in class. Many teachers spend their time on ipads or computers, knowing that the majority of students would have private tuition and may have good CXC results as a result; such results would be credited to these teachers. There may be some teachers who may not know the art of teaching and help should be accorded to them.

Efforts should be made to explain to teachers the negative effects the private lesson system have on students. Parents and students should also have to be formally brought on board. The Ministry of Education will have to take the initiative and responsibility for this effort, using well-known methodologies.

The school administrations must also be involved and one of the first considerations is that they should cease entering large numbers of subjects for certain students. A few students passing 15 or 20 subjects is done much more to give prestige to the school or advertise it but is of little benefit to the student. The core subjects should be done such as Maths, English, Computers, Foreign language, the Science subjects and a few other subjects in which the student may have a strong interest such as Principles of Business or Art.

Schools should also be required to publish their full results and not only those of the high flyers.

Parents must involve themselves in helping their children, especially at the primary level and children must be encouraged to study and to read as widely as possible. They should use the public library system for advice from the librarians on what to read and also what books to borrow.

The system of private lessons could be brought under control and eventually phased out if all stakeholders are engaged.

The Ministry of Education will have to take the initiative. It would be a great educational advancement if the system of private lessons were phased out.