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    4 Billion Tuition Fees

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    Zahidan Ariffin
    - A survey found that Malaysian parents spend an average of RM80 per month on tuition fees for each child, totaling around RM4.3 billion annually spent on tuition across the country. - The large tuition economy is partly due to teachers doubling as tuition teachers after school to supplement their low salaries of around RM1,200 per month for degree holders. - There are issues of conflict of interest when teachers withhold information in class and only "teach" it in their after-school tuition classes. The low teacher pay contributes to their need to conduct commercial tuition classes.

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    4 Billion Tuition Fees

    Uploaded by

    Zahidan Ariffin
    24 views2 pages
    - A survey found that Malaysian parents spend an average of RM80 per month on tuition fees for each child, totaling around RM4.3 billion annually spent on tuition across the country. - The large tuition economy is partly due to teachers doubling as tuition teachers after school to supplement their low salaries of around RM1,200 per month for degree holders. - There are issues of conflict of interest when teachers withhold information in class and only "teach" it in their after-school tuition classes. The low teacher pay contributes to their need to conduct commercial tuition classes.

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    - A survey found that Malaysian parents spend an average of RM80 per month on tuition fees for each child, totaling around RM4.3 billion annually spent on tuition across the country. - The large tuition economy is partly due to teachers doubling as tuition teachers after school to supplement their low salaries of around RM1,200 per month for degree holders. - There are issues of conflict of interest when teachers withhold information in class and only "teach" it in their after-school tuition classes. The low teacher pay contributes to their need to conduct commercial tuition classes.

    Copyright:

    Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    24 views2 pages

    4 Billion Tuition Fees

    Uploaded by

    Zahidan Ariffin
    - A survey found that Malaysian parents spend an average of RM80 per month on tuition fees for each child, totaling around RM4.3 billion annually spent on tuition across the country. - The large tuition economy is partly due to teachers doubling as tuition teachers after school to supplement their low salaries of around RM1,200 per month for degree holders. - There are issues of conflict of interest when teachers withhold information in class and only "teach" it in their after-school tuition classes. The low teacher pay contributes to their need to conduct commercial tuition classes.

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    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
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    4 Billion Tuition Fees!

    Yes, that's if the survey conducted by the New Straits Times is accurate.
    According to a survey on education and tuition, parents paid RM80 on average a month for each child. Determined to give their children every advantage, roughly two in three Malaysians with schoolgoing children pay for extra coaching... Some 1,029 people were polled in the survey commissioned by the New Straits Times. Half had schoolgoing children. And two-thirds with schoolgoing children paid RM80 on average a month. When the finding is extrapolated on a national level, it indicates that as much as RM360 million is spent a month on tuition, or RM4.3 billion a year.

    I have my personal doubts on the extrapolated figure purely because the survey sample is so small - only some 500 parents with school children. But that's another matter altogether. We all know that the number of students attending tuition classes in the country is enormous. The Secretary-General of National Union of the Teaching Profession, Loke Yim Pheng was apparently not surprised. She claimed that "most parents find it tough to deal with subjects now taught in a language different from what they learnt in school." I would think that it is a little over the top to blame the size of the tuition economy on the teaching of Science and Mathematics in English. Anecdotal evidence tells me that tuition today is an essential element of going to school simply because the teachers in school are doubling up as tuition teachers in their homes. This is a widespread practise, despite it being a breach of regulations (if I'm not wrong). The result of such blatant tuition practises by school teachers is a major conflict of interest by the teachers themselves. I have heard many stories of teachers witholding information in school classes and "teaching" them only during their tuition classes.

    Even during my time in primary school, I have seen wholesale test papers circulated in a tuiton class prior to the actual test in school.

    As a result, students and parents who are interested in doing well have "no choice" but to attend the after school tuition classes conducted by their teachers.

    Even if the teachers practises "strict" and ethical separation between conducting classes in school versus their own tuition classes, there will be a tendency for parents and students to take up the extra classes "in case" certain additional tips or leaks are provided. Enforcement against these practices are obviously weak. In addition, teachers have every motivation to conduct commercial tuition classes after school because the teachers' pay starting from RM1,200 per month for degree holders is clearly insufficient to lead a 'more' comfortable lifestyle. If the extrapolation of the statistics proved to be true, the clearly there is a large proportion of teachers who are involved in these activities. How else would the entire "underground" tuition economy be otherwise supported? There just cannot that many non-school teacher tuition teachers who can support the teaching two-thirds of students in Malaysia! For those interested, degree-holders teachers in Singapore start their working career with a basic pay of S$2,200 (or RM4,800), 4 times more than Malaysians. Not only will

    there be less incentives to seek extra income, it'll also attract the best candidates to the profession. The Ministry of Education needs to seriously relook at the entire remuneration and career advancement package of teachers in Malaysia. Read also my post on "Quality Teachers" earlier.
    http://educationmalaysia.blogspot.com/2005/12/4-billion-tuition-fees.html

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