Dependence on tuition unlikely to end soon?

How not to have tuition? My son will have relief teacher every year for few months for each subject. Take instance this year, Pri 5, his English teacher went for course from Jan to end May and Math & science teacher went on course from Jul till Sep. During these period of relief, we depend very much on tuition as the relief is always behind schedule compare to other class or relief teacher simple cannot cope with the class. If these period there is no tutor to help him, to build up his confidence, to stay in pace with other class, how do you expect him to score for exam.

Pre primay tuition not needed? I still remember, I learn the stroke of chinese words like father, mother in Pri one. Math additional and substraction in pri one. Nowadays, the children are expected to know before they go to pri one. I heard from one of my friend, her son went into this school and child suppose to take a test to determine his standard and allocate the class accordingly.

Goverment and school focus too much on result and certificate. Fun time childhood is no longer be available. If child can cope with the school, why we parents wants to spend money on tuition, spend time to send and fetch? We will rather have a good and enjoyable weekend for family bon****ing the same money and time.

My Primary 5 daughter was assigned to a Class led by an Award-Winning Chinese Teacher (Best Teacher Award). 

During the first day of class, the teacher spent the whole lesson pressurizing students that she was to cramp her lessons, and students would have to complete Primary 6 Syllabus at least half a year before PSLE.

From Jan till now, she had been overloading students with tons of homework, including 52 model compositions for copying (many of them have lots of spelling mistakes).   Out of the 52 articles, she had never even read one to her students, not to mention that no explanation was given to the difficult vocabularies used in the articles.  Her other loads for students also include recitation of Oral examples, and memorizing  “so called” good phases to reproduced word by word (which also includes many spelling mistakes).   

 She did not teach the materials given to the students, but just keep nagging in class.

Since most of the students cannot complete the homework in time, she started to call parents, asking them  to put in effort to make sure that their children can do the homework reasonably well.

Homework submitted were not marked (until one parent had filed a complaint to the school, then there were just a tick on the papers and a mark for the compositions submitted without details of how the marks were computed.  Comprehension and Multiple Choice questions continued to be self-marked).  She only post the answers or suggested answers on internet and expect the students to do self-marking.  Needless to say, students after self-marking might know the correct answers for particular questions, but not the reason why those answers were correct.  In other words, they are not learning (just answer copying). 

I had gone through some of the suggested answers and noted many mistakes even in Han Yu Pin Yin in multiple choice questions.  I had talked to the Form Teachers about such “self-marking” practice, who replied me that she did not have time to mark the English, Mathematics and Science exercises given to the students too.   Workloads are just too heavy that students are expected to self-mark.  The situation was expected to be worse in Primary 6.

With Award-Winning Teachers like this, how do we ensure the students know the subjects?   Parents are not experts in all subjects, parents are not NIT trained, parents have many other roles to play besides most parents are having full-time work.  Without tutor, how do students survive in such school?

It's very ironical to hear nowadays that the banded classes in schools seem to have more homework, more supplementary classes and better teachers coaching them in school.

I thought the good teachers should be assigned to weaker classes, and more supplementary classes should be given to weaker students to help them to understand and get better in class.

Sadly, it's not the case...   Sigh....

My view is tuition is necessary only if children cannot cope with any particular subjects.  Why send children for tuition when they are doing well? Even if they aren't doing well, parents should identify which areas the child is weak at and then engage a tutor on a need basis to help the child in a targetted approach. Seriously, children must have time to enjoy their CCA, have time with friends or just relax at home.  I simply can't understand those parents who send their children for tuition when they are doing well, one I know has loads of tuition even though she is in a top class of one of the IP school, just because she doesn't want to leave the top class!

Tuition (not referring to enrichment classes ie music or drama etc classes) will be here to stay.  It is indeed useful for struggling students.  But I hope there will be an end of those top students clamouring for tuition just to be one up against their friends or for whatever reasons.

There are an average of 20 students in class, will the teacher slow down the syllabus if only 1 child is lacking behind? The answer will be no. This is a reason why tuition is required.

Sometime having a different teacher tea****nd explaining a same concept but in a different way may help the child to understand better. Not 1 teacher's method fits all children.

Even my child's preschool teacher encourages me to send my child to enrichment classes.

Children will not feel pressure if they are allowed to learn at their own pace. Though there may be enrichment classes but doesn't mean parents are expecting their child to perform better than peers in class.

I guess the reasons for so many of such topics being raised on tuition is because there are many parents who are unable to afford their children tuition and they are afraid and jealous. For me, I believed in giving my child the best within my jurisdiction.

My child is enjoying his class and making more friends, he has shown great enthusiasms in enrichment classes. I m not expecting him to do better when he goes to Primary 1. I just want to get his foundation firm and solid. If he does not do well in future, I have no regrets as I have done my part. If he does well, my efforts pay off.