Rules for tuition
New Straits Times (Columns)
14 Sep 2006

PRIVATE tuition for schoolchildren, a thriving industry that rakes in an estimated RM4 billion annually, is a reality that pupils, parents and education administrators have learnt to live with. The fact is that many teachers give tuition, or extra, out-of-school coaching; some for free, others for a fee.

Provisions allow teachers to do this, so long as they keep to a maximum four hours a week. The government has even set up a RM200 million tuition-voucher scheme for pupils from poor families to make sure no one gets left behind, proof perhaps that private tuition is not without its merits.

Extra coaching can be helpful, especially for the weak and disadvantaged pupils, in keeping up in an increasingly competitive school environment. Most of the teachers involved provide a useful service while keeping within accepted norms. But questions are raised when it’s the after-school tuition, and not the classroom teaching, that becomes the educator’s primary occupation and source of income.

Teachers, thankfully few, who impart only the bare minimum in class, as per the syllabus, while encouraging pupils to enrol in their after-school classes treat the school as a recruitment ground for private tuition, all to make up their five-figure incomes. They are in effect running parallel schools — where education is available, but only to those who can afford it.

Though the guilty are few in number, their actions threaten to cast a dark shadow over this noble profession. Some teachers are understandably upset with what they feel is excessive attention given to this errant group. The dedication of the overwhelming majority of teachers in this country is not in doubt. But the fact that there exists a number — no matter how small — of educators who betray the trust given to them for profit merits attention. The question is how to bring these abuses under control without jeopardising the good that extra coaching can bring.

The pressing need is for more clarity on what is and isn’t acceptable: A reiteration and implementation of the rules of conduct for teachers engaged in giving extra classes. Some school administrators have reportedly set their own ground rules for teachers who give extra classes. Clear guidelines incorporated into school regulations would give everyone a clearer picture on the standards the private tuition industry must operate within. And for these rules to work, they must be constantly monitored by school administrators and the recently strengthened Federal Schools Inspectorate, which would do well to include this in its list of inspection priorities.