Forum: Study what tuition industry is doing right and plug gaps in school

A class of lower primary students at EduFirst Learning Centre. PHOTO: ST

Many dual-career parents get extra external help for their children because they feel that these tutors have the necessary resources, experience and track record (Too much tuition could do more harm than good, Dec 9).

Tutors also widely extol their teaching achievements on various platforms to build up their pool of students.

What is ironic is that tutors also use examination papers and solutions taken from school teachers as part of their teaching repertoire. This does not seem equitable to the teachers, who spend hours creating these exams in the first place.

The Ministry of Education (MOE) should get schools to make their final exam papers, along with suggested solutions, freely available on their websites. Parents can then access them and not have to pay tutors to teach their children how to solve them.

Teachers can also produce free educational podcasts and videos during their time teaching in school so that parents can be assured of what their children are learning.

MOE should study how the tuition industry is complementing the excellent job of school teachers and see what is missing in school lessons. Perhaps it should try to reverse-engineer the methods offered by established tuition centres and those known as super-tutors.

The parents of today's children are themselves the products of the tuition industry of the past, and will need more than just rhetoric to change their mind about the need for children to receive tuition.

Colin Ong Tau Shien

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A version of this article appeared in the print edition of The Straits Times on December 11, 2019, with the headline Forum: Study what tuition industry is doing right and plug gaps in school. Subscribe