Don’t overload kids with tuition, parents urged
PUNCAK ALAM: Tuition and pushing students to score straight As do not make a genius out of your child.
Deputy Education Minister II Senator Datuk Chong Sin Woon said parents must learn to change the perception they had about the need to send their children for tuition classes.
“In the past, parents used to send their children for tuition because they might be weak in certain subjects. Today, that is not the case because parents seem to think that without tuition a child won’t do well in their exams.
“They are often under the impression that the more tuition their children attend, the higher their chances of scoring As. But, they do not realise the stress they put on their children. This is one of the reasons why the Education Ministry chose to come up with a new system.”
He said the ministry was headed towards creating high-level thinking, well-balanced and quality students by adopting the system.
“We no longer want classes to be all about mugging, taking examinations, grade-based and stressful in terms of competition among students and schools.
“Now, the ministry’s focus is on creating smarter, higher-level thinking and more marketable students for their future,” he said after presenting 153 primary and secondary students with RM1,200 worth of aid at the Eco World Gallery @ Eco Grandeur here yesterday.
The aid is part of the Eco World Foundation’s Students Aid Programme, which was launched in 2014.
So far, more than 3,000 students up to the university level have benefited from it.
Chong said the old school of thought that the number of As determined the level of a student’s intelligence had to be replaced with a system that suited future demands.
He said the old mugging method had caused parents to make comparisons, fuelling negative competition among their children, especially when a student did well.
On a separate issue on workbook usage in schools, where teachers used more than one workbook for a subject, Chong said the ministry did not take lightly schools or teachers who tried to “overload” students at primary level with more than one revision book or workbook for each subject.
“Beginning next year, we will go all out to enforce this. Any school or teacher found to have flouted the warning will face stern action.”
Last month, the ministry issued a circular to schools warning stern action on schools and teachers who made students buy more than one book for each subject in Year Four to Six.