Monday, February 13, 2012

Tuition(s)? Is this for real...?

I read about this today in the Straits Times - Parents hiring help to do tuition homework. This blows my mind - that some parents are actually hiring a second tier of tuition teachers to help their students with tuition homework of 'elite' tuition centers.

How can this be..? I am totally dumbfounded.

As a teacher, of course I believe in the importance of education. Perhaps, I can understand if parents would like to have tuition for their kids in certain subjects that they could be struggling with. But having extra tutors to cope with existing tuition homework just simply doesn't make sense. I don't want my son's childhood to be just completely about studies!

Honestly, so what if you have excellent academic grades but you do not have sound values and good character? There's really so much more to life than academic grades - and seriously, I don't think that life is going to be rosy just because you make it to an IP school (many parents will do anything to get their children into IP schools).

At the end of the day, I really believe that it is the character and values that we developed in our adolescent and teenage years that is going to see us through our adulthood.

I pray that this is just a false alarm - very few parents are engaging second-tiered tuition teachers. I hope.

3 comments:

Hh said...

I agree with u that values are more important than grades... But we can confidently say this because we have mixed with the elites, attended the best schools, done it all... Besides, life is a lot more competitive now than during our time... and studying can be a form of character building..

Nicodemus Pang said...

Yo Hh, I do agree that we can cultivate and grow values and character (like discipline, determination, etc) as we study.

But by being so focused on it (as if it's the only thing) makes it like we are willing to do ANYTHING so long as we get the grades. This is not healthy for our children/next generation in the long run.

Also, it is true that you and I may have done it all in terms of like mixing with 'elites' etc. But truth be told, I have many friends who didn't come from 'elite schools' and yet are happy, contented and successful in their own right.

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