My neighbour's daughter is 4 years old. A friendly little girl. Very chirpy. But I hear her crying every morning and evening. She starts crying at 5:30 a.m because she has been woken up to go to pre-school by 6:00. She gets home around noon. Her mother and grandmother would like her to come to my place and spend time with me, so that she's out of the way. But since I've very subtly made it known that I'm busy during the day, she no longer comes across. In the evening again at 5:00 pm I hear her whining because she doesn't want to go to the tutor's place. She comes back from the tutor at 7:30. Maybe she gets to play, maybe she doesn't.
Her cousin, who is all of 7 has roughly the same routine. I haven't heard her crying or whining. But that's probably because she doesn't live on the ground floor next to me. But she too, hardly gets any time to play. She has a private tutor coming home to teach her. And because the parents know I don't quite approve of small children getting tuition, I was told that her tutor is a student who needs the money and comes home to play with the child. The lessons did not sound like child play.
It really makes me sad to see that parents need to engage tutors for children who are in pre-school or are in the primary schooling stage! When we were young, we were allowed to go out and kick the ball or fall off trees or bicycles but we were asked to come home by nightfall, wash up and finish our homework. That is all the studying we did outside school. I don't think we've done very badly in life? I wonder how many tutors Dhirubhai Ambani had?
I never had a tutor when I was young. I recall that I used to go across to a neibour "uncle" if I had a maths problem that I could not understand. My daughter never had a tutor except in her final year of school, when she used to go thrice a week to a math's tutor because she was weak in maths.
So what's happening? Are the schools not teaching? I remember that our "classwork" and "homework" taught us all that we know today. Tutors were for "duffers" -- thick-headed people with little brains. But now, it's only a rare child who does not take "private tuition"! Where's the need to go to school then?
I spoke to a friend who's a school teacher and she said that parents are terrified that their children won't get good grades. Without "good marks" they won't be able to get into "good colleges". Also, she said that in many schools the teachers deliberately "fail" children in class exams so that their pupils are forced to seek "private tuiton" from the same teacher who teaches them in school. The whole system is corrupt these days -- including teachers. This worries me. It scares me. A nation without good teachers is bound to perish and be enslaved. It amazes me that my generation has been so corrupt. What kind of legacy are we leaving behind?
Also what bothers me is lopsided education. Those who can afford it, send their children to "private schools" (wonder why they are called public schools) and then get them tutors so that their children do well. On the other hand, the poor or working class people who can't afford to send their kids to government schools where the teaching is sub-standard. And they certainly can't afford private tutors. So what happens? The gap between the haves and havenots is widening rather rapidly and this does not auger well for the country.
This is why I like Mitali's effort at creating a balance. She was teaching a couple of "rich kids" in the evening and was very frustrated by the attitude of the parents who "bought" education. So she decided to stop that and has started tutoring slum children in her home. She has four kids and expecting more. I wish more people would follow her example.
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