Barking up of Children’s life

When I was in school my teachers in government school had no idea how to teach English subject (forget about how they have passed such subject in their student life) they lacked in every skill. In my class, out of ten at least 7-8 student will enroll private tuition for English and Mathematics and the results pass out was always 90% and above.

Infact, these private tuitions have different kind of inefficiency but all are not in same quality, so in way these private tuitions have taught at least to pass the odd government exam. But for years I was confused how and why it happens like this but later when I started reading large literature. I find, they are stupidly inefficient institution, they have union power, they influence through politicians and over a period they have never like the word ‘performance’ and the end results is barking up of a beautiful tree!

It is not that easy to “eat, shoot and leave” these mammals from Indian soil!

Mythili Bhusnurmath has a good piece on why do bark up the wrong tree which is otherwise a beautiful tree!

She writes in ET:

• “In such a scenario the demand for tuitions will not go away, ban or no ban; more so in view of the huge mis-match between demand and supply of seats in good institutions of higher education, Hence, rather than legislating a ban that will prove impossible to enforce and additionally, will serve no purpose, it would be far better for the govern-ment to focus its attention on improving the quality of schooling so that children do not feel the need for private tuition.
• Agreed, this is easier said than done; agreed also, that this is some-thing we’ve been trying to do for years without success. But there is one reason why we may be a little more successful this time round: the voucher system wherein 25% of the seats in all private schools will be open to children from under-privileged backgrounds who would be given vouchers by the government to pay their fees.
• This means children will now be able to choose which school they wish to attend. At the same time competition between private schools competing for additional funds brought in through vouchers will improve teaching quality.
• The amount involved is huge. According to Parth Shah of the Centre for Civil Society, by the time the present lot of class 1 students reaches class 12, as many as 30 million children will be at-tending private schools with government support.
• Yes, this may not improve matters in government schools where teachers’ salaries and funding are assured but here the principle of neighbourhood schools with the Panchayats being given the responsibility to appoint and monitor the performance of the teachers could improve the quality of schooling. Banning private tuitions won’t!”