The thought for private tuition comes in when you see your child not being able to cope with whatever is being taught at school and, hence, coming home with poor grades. With tutors, your child receives personal attention, and the teachers are expected to mend their teaching techniques to suit your child. It is like; nothing can go wrong when you have provided the best private tutor available in your locality.
I have this friend who sends his daughter to the best tutor in town. The teacher is a specialist in her subject, and lots of degrees are mentioned in her visiting card. However, while talking to him, I found out that even after providing the best tutor and with the best of books, his daughter just cannot bring a decent score in that particular subject.
I advised him to dump the tutor and look for other options. At times, private tuition is not the solution to every education problem. No doubt it helps, but you should consider a few points before getting your child a tutor or even access the present one.
A recent survey has shown that in Johannesburg, tutors are charging around 3,000 Rands for an hour of tuition. Also, it is reported that most teachers are earning nearly 143,000 Rands a month by providing extra tuitions to pupil around. That is near $10,500 per month. Certainly, they don’t come cheap, and you should know if your investment is actually helping your child or not.
- It creates some sort of dependency.
Your child tends to get dependent on the private tutor. In the process, he/she may lose the self-learning skill and will always wait for the tutor to solve the problem. What happens inschool is that the teacher there will never solve all the problems in the textbook due to time restraint and your child is expected to solve a few on their own.
Even if he/she can’t solve all, there will be a friend who has done it, and this promotes interaction and learning. With private tutors, thetotal attention of the one teaching is toyour child, and he/she is bound by duty to solve nearly all the unsolved ones. With ready help available, children do not try a particular problem more than once and hence lose the deducing power.
- Private tuitions are not a 24-hour service.
Your child has to study when the tutor has time to do it. I have seen this with one of my cousins. At many instances, his maths tutor used to come at a time that is slotted for my cousin’s favourite TV show or his baseball match. In the process, he used to remain distracted the entire tuition period and never actually got hold of the subject.
Also, it may so happen that your child faces a problem when the tutor is not available. With this, he/she has to leave the topic and has to wait for the tutor to arrive. By the time the tuition session begins, the problem loses its importance and urgency and remains unsolved.
- Technique of teaching may not suit your child.
I had this Science tutor who used to teach me the subject without drawing figures. While other students of this very teacher passed with decent scores, I always ended up failing. My mother noticed this and got me another tutor replacing the previous one. This teacher drew figures and scribbled in my copy while explaining every line, and I ended up with more than decent marks in my next sessional exam.
This was the problem with my friend’s daughter as well. Teaching techniques vary from one person to another, and it must suit your child. Now, there is no way to find this out. Just because a teacher is the best in town, does not mean he/she is perfect for your child. Probably, you have to make multiple switches before finding a perfect tutor.
- Updated method of studying and preparation.
Most tutors tend to hold on to their age-old method of teaching. Also, they possess a set of questions that they circulate year after year for student reference. However, with increasing competition and evolution in the education system, both question pattern and type have changed.
Very few tutors can modify themselves with changing time and this, in turn, makes your child stay behind from others in theclass. Best way to tackle this issue is to opt for online homework service providers. These websites employ a dedicated team to update question patterns and studying methods and also conduct routine tests based on the modern pattern.
- Hourly restriction may not lead to proper learning.
All private tuitions are bound by a time span. Your child has to learn at the pace of the teacher and may not grasp all the necessary concepts. Also, the tutors are restricted by duty to complete the course and may have to rush through few topics or skip few problems.
Studies have also shown that the human brain can process information continuously for 30 minutes only. So, a two-hour tutoring session may not help your child in the way you want it to. Even if you get the best for your child, just the concept of tuition may not suit your child at all.
Hence, do not just blindly invest and solve every education problem of your child by providing a private tutor. They do help but may not be the right solution for your child. Also, it may so happen that the tutor you have provided is perfect, but there are other reasons that are affecting the learning process of your child. Identify “Why your child is scoring low grades and what all you can do about itâ€.
Parting thought:
Where there is a problem, there is a solution.
If you do come to the conclusion that private tuition is not the ultimate solution for your child and have already made multiple switches, there are online homework service providers who may serve as a favourable option. First of all, they come cheap and offer similar services as any private tutor will do. Also, their services are 24-hours and some even provide live chat facility.
Their explanations come with detailed analysis and often come with proper real-life examples. What is unique about these platforms are that they provide assignment help for a wide variety of subjects, and all is available on a single website.
Many may say that private tuition is extremely important for students who are introvert and do not open up in school. No denying this fact but remaining an introvert will ultimately not help your child in any way and learning things the hard way may make your child shine better. So, access every situation and find out the best solution for your child. After all, your decisions now will shape your child’s future.