I thought tuition is needed when additional tutoring is needed if the regular teaching is not understood by one. No, I am grossly wrong. Tuition ( tution... the way it is spelt in Mumbai) is for the whole student community as such without any differentiation.
One would have joined Jr.KG or Engineering ...... it does not matter. You can get tutored. Who would tutor you? That is an interesting question.
The other day I met my ex-employee whose daughter is just 2 years old. She has resigned from my office to take care of her baby. If you are someone like me, you might assume that the word 'take care of the baby" would include things like feeding, bathing, reading stories etc. I learnt that it includes dropping the baby to tuition class and picking her back. I asked her when she is at home full time and has noone in the house other than her husband and this only baby, why she needs to put her 2 year old in a tuition class.
Prompt came her reply that she does not want her daughter to lose out on the opportunity of mixing with other kids of her age who are getting ready to go to a particular private school. This tuition teacher knows exactly what to do to get her daughter admitted in this school. She will be ready for the Nursery class even before she turns 3!!
Do I know the meaning for the words "pressure" and "competition" now? I think I have started understanding now.
The other day I caught up with my college-mate and our conversation went from our days in college to our children's college. One fine day she calls me to enquire whether I know someone who can come home to teach her daughter Mathematics. I know that she sends her daughter to a private school and shells out nearly 5 lacs per annum! Then why a tutor at home? What the school does after collecting 5 lacs? This is not even a residential school?
Children cannot clarify their doubts in the class-room as it might sound very "silly", to raise a doubt in the class or question a method with the teacher! Where else you are supposed to do that? The child is not comfortable going to group tuitions and hence the requirement for a private tutor who would teach her one-to-one.
Did I hear someone saying that teaching profession does not attract talent as it does not pay to be a teacher? no... that is "the" profession to take up in places like Mumbai.
We have this pleasant young guy in our colony who completed his engineering with a rank in the university. Everyone presumed that he would do masters in management or masters in science and take up a career suitable to his interest. He did take up a career immediately after graduation, in teaching. He started tutorials for high school students and before we could count the number of students going to his house for the classes, he set up his class-room and office in a commercial complex! Within one year, his class-rooms multiplied and within 3 years, he is proud owner of 3 classes and teacher for nearly 500 students.
The other day, a friend of mine met me in bank and informed me that she is happy that her only son managed to get admission in one of the city colleges and also in one of the good tutorials which would guarantee her son a good placement. I was supposed to know that admission to engineering college and to a tutorial is done in one go... how can I even think that a student capable of getting admission in engineering college does not need additional help for studies? Too old-fashioned ?? Why should he trouble himself learning the subjects with the help of college lectures, self-study and with reference material from libraries? Why should he not be spoon-fed by an experienced person who churns out students for these exams year after year? What is wrong in using expert help? I am all confused ;-((
I have been running an organisation where young boys / girls join with very little or no knowledge of computers or outside world. I take the pain/pleasure of training them into acceptable young people by teaching them all that is needed to be successful in a marketing career. I have not charged them fee, instead, paid them salary to learn and work. I believed that this is an investment into human resources ! They do work for us for sometime and when they turn really good, it is time for them to leave and they do leave for greener pastures. We have earned a name for churning out quality people for the industry..
I am wondering now, whether I should have started a training academy and not a marketing organisation? Whether I should have charged my new entrants fee for the course and not paid them stipend for training? Is it time for me to change my mind-set about tuition?
