Private Tutoring-How Much is Too Much?

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Asia dominates the global market for private student coaching. Private tuitions account for more than 12% of annual household income in India. After-school private tuition is now as much a desi thing in India as chai. More and more people are choosing to do that extra bit of academic work in order to earn six-figure salaries, for the same reason children are being pushed into a system that emphasizes on grades and competition. The pressure to perform better, the skyrocketing cut-off marks for universities, and the overall increase in the number of people doing the same thing provide parents with an impetus to push their children harder to excel, to stay ahead of the pack.

In a recent conversation with The Chairman of The Doon School, Dehradun, Anoop Singh Bishnoi, he shared his thoughts about why he thinks private tuition is a necessity in our country. He said, “We all know that 30 students in each class is the ideal number for a good academic experience, however, with classroom sizes frequently exceeding 60 students per class, most parents believe that private tuition is the only way to get a good education.” But this is where the issue arises. How many families can afford to pay for tuition expenses? Are students able to succeed without tutoring, or have they become too reliant on such assistance?

Every day, children rush home from school for a quick snack before heading off to some sort of tuition center. With all of these classes taking up the majority of the students' time, where do they find time to be children? Adding to this, Anoop Singh Bishnoi said, "As PCB or PCMB dominate our expectations every waking hour of every day, creativity, imagination, and art all take a back seat; all in the hopes of producing yet another engineer, banker, or doctor. Sure, we need doctors and engineers, but we don’t need to force entire generations of children to waste years of their childhood becoming something they don’t even understand. This is yet another issue caused by our educational system and exacerbated by the private coaching industry.”

This is not a new topic; it comes up from time to time. Parents and teenagers agree, and educational reforms are needed. Then another admissions season begins, and we end up reinforcing the vicious circle of factory schools in which students are programmed to become products for a corporate-driven society. As Anoop Singh Bishnoi said, “Tuition isn’t the only issue here; perhaps it’s us, perhaps it’s our expectations, and we seriously need to think about it.”

Location: New Delhi, Delhi, India

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