Feature
Weaning education off private coaching and tutoring
Dr Binoy Barman
As the government has taken initiative to eradicate private coaching and tutoring from the arena of school and college education, teachers have mixed reaction to it. Some teachers feel it is a just decision while others think just the opposite. According to the former group, with coaching and private practice, students become largely teacher-dependent and fall short of developing their creative faculty. On the other hand, the latter group is of the opinion that teachers provide extra help to the students to enhance their level of knowledge, so it is of much use for examinations as well as practical life. The arguments of both of the camps appear to be valid. Then why so fuss? Is the government going to take a wrong decision? Will the decision prove fruitful in practice? Will it actually bring any big change in education, improving its quality? Above all, is it necessary at all? We have to brood over the questions.
It seems our school and college education has become inextricably intertwined with private coaching and tutoring. You can think of the baby sucking breast milk for its growth. At some point of toddling the baby has to stop breast-feeding. It is natural and necessary. It saves the baby from being too much dependent on mother, paving its own way of existence. In a similar vein, sometimes it may be necessary to wean education off unnecessary breast-feeding. When classroom education is good and adequate, it should obviate the secondary support of coaching and private tutoring. When the main stream is weak, it invites the peripheral stream.
We can consider whether our primary stream of school and college education has been weak or faulty. It seems to be so, otherwise it would not have any need of private coaching and tutoring. It is a symptom of illness, so to say, when students rush to the coaching centres or teachers' private dens leaving classroom en masse. Classroom education is neglected and coaching is cared. It makes the pocket of private tutors thick, turning the guardians into losers. The Education Watch Report 2006 reveals that a guardian has to spend about Tk 17,000 annually on private tutoring of their children in high school in addition to regular expenses.
There is obviously a notorious side of private coaching and tutoring. It promotes a sort of discrimination in education. As it involves money, only the well-off can afford it. The poor cannot get this service, anyway. It creates subtle divide and sub-class in already class-cracked society. I do not say the money earned through coaching and private tutoring is ill-gotten. The teachers put in extra labour and time, which brings extra money for them. It is legal so far as it is approved by the system. Now, if private coaching and tutoring is banned, the income will be termed illegal. However, no coacher and private tutor want it to happen, I suppose. They want a legal way of extra income.
When we talk of 'extra' income, what does it imply? Does it mean that teachers' income in the institutions they work for, realised as salary, is not good enough to make both ends meet? Or, does it mean that despite sufficient salary, they venture to earn extra money just because there is opportunity. The reality, as most people would comprehend, is teachers are poorly paid in their schools and colleges, barring few institutions. They indeed need additional income to maintain their family and educate their own children. Therefore it sounds logical when teachers demand pay hike before a ban is imposed on private coaching and tutoring. The government should consider teachers' plight before they take any decision about them. Banning private coaching and tutoring abruptly will be similar to evicting hawkers from footpath without any arrangement of rehabilitation. There are over 80,000 primary schools, 18,000 high schools and 3,000 colleges in the country, which employ about 6.5 lakh teachers. Let the large number of poor folks building the backbone of the nation not be thrown in hot water.
On many occasions the past governments attempted to brush education crushing coaching centres and private chambers. But the attempts were not successful. The reasons of failure were the lack of government's sincerity on the one hand and cultural deterioration on the other. The culture of education was affected after prolonged practice of private coaching and tutoring. Teachers as well as students stayed away from classroom for days together and it became a habit hardening gradually in individual and social brains akin to a tumour. Habit is not to be changed overnight. I doubt the ban on private coaching and tutoring will bring teachers and students back to classroom. If the government is really sincere, it should seek to bring about a total change in the educational system. The change should be qualitative, being coherent in itself and consistent with the existing reality. Education is a light to which all should have equal access. It should help all, and harm none.
The writer is an Assistant Professor, English, Bangladesh University. He can be reached at: binoy_barman@yahoo.com
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