Panel to focus on cutting down tuition

KOLKATA: The state government wants the 19-member syllabus committee, led by Sunanda Sanyal, to focus on a more up-to-date curriculum and better evaluation system so as to reduce the dependence on private tuition. 

Learning by rote has become a practice among students in schools under the state board. And the predictable question pattern is encouraging cramming of texts and increasing the student's dependence on private tuition, say experts. The committee has to suggest ways to improve the syllabus and exam pattern so as to improve a student's understanding of the subject and reduce rote learning. 

"The panel will review the syllabi and textbooks for the entire spectrum of school education, from Class I to Class XII, and recommend changes in line with the National Curriculum Framework - 2005," an education department official said. 

The committee will also examine the process of continuous evaluation practiced by various boards, including holding unit tests, and recommend a 'scientific policy of evaluation without creating undue pressure and mental stress'. 

private tutors

Tutoring can be a useful aid to get over the education speed bumps but too much of it can gnaw away at a pupil's self-confidence, writes a year 12 student.

In these last frantic months leading up to the HSC, the mere prospect of me not having a tutor on tap sends my mother into a meltdown. (She is not so much a helicopter parent as an entire aerial fleet).

A few days ago my mother realised I wasn't being coached in a specific subject and immediately started to panic. ''This is bad, are you going to be alright?" she said fearfully, before flipping out her phone and starting to dial for a tutor.

It was as if she felt I was completely incapable of studying for myself, and at a first glance it seems like she might be right.

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At present, my tutor count stands at three, with someone to help out in all of my five subjects - advanced English, two unit maths, modern history, business studies and legal studies.

I'm not alone, many members of my class at a school in Sydney's eastern suburbs have tutors. Those that don't are usually the geniuses, such as the pupil who got 100 per cent in a modern history exam who quite frankly would leave most tutors floundering in his wake.

Admittedly, I attend a private school and I'm part of a privileged world, which regards money spent on education to be an affordable luxury.

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A private tutor company is going to set up learning centres within five state secondary schools in England, selling extra lessons to schools and parents.

The schools will pay the TLC Education Group £22 per 80-minute additional lesson for their own pupils.

Parents of pupils from other schools will pay £27 to attend lessons.

Andrew Hutchinson, head of the Parkside Federation, where tutors will be based, said it would provide one-to-one lessons for a wider range of pupils.

But the ATL teachers' union attacked the scheme as an "unethical use of public money".

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private tutors