I LAUD the call for more Chinese schools by the MCA. Currently, there is serious overloading with an average of 50 students per class.

This is taxing for both students and teachers. The teachers are unable to cope with the workload and the students are poorly guided. Parents then have to fork out money for tuition, and unscrupulous tuition teachers take advantage of the situation.

Some ‘teachers’ are charging up to RM1,000 per child just for Chinese language tuition and, mind you, I am only referring to these teachers teaching full-time or part-time in Chinese primary schools.

I have two kids and I was paying RM400 in tuition fees monthly for lessons twice a week, and I was told I was paying peanuts.

It appears to me it doesn’t matter if the teacher has no certificate (which applies to most of them), just a basic certificate or a postgraduate certificate, their charges are equally exorbitant.

There is also a dire need to weed out those ‘teachers’ who have no interest in education or in our children’s welfare but are there for a quick profit.

The demand for tuition teachers is so great, and parents have no choice as the current situation in Chinese primary schools is “educationally unfit”.

The Education Ministry must check on this situation urgently, because if school teachers are involved in so many tuition hours, how can they prepare their school work?

We may be generating a new breed of unscrupulous “profit makers” at our children’s expense, as well as robbing our children of their childhood.

As an educator myself, I find the situation warrants a critical re-evaluation. A committee must be set up to look at how we can improve the delivery of education to our children.

BAFFLED EDUCATOR,
Kuala Lumpur.

Source: The Star – January 31, 2008