If you want a round cupcake, you use a round mould. In our Malaysian educational context, I sometimes feel we are using square moulds to make round cupcakes. After that, we try to squeeze and trim square cupcakes into round ones after they are baked.  

The tuition craze does not really help to create able, independent, progressive-minded, intelligent and well-balanced individuals as planned in our national curriculum and agenda. 

The trend of sending schoolchildren to a string of tuition classes when they are as young as seven probably started a decade ago, or perhaps longer. It has come to a stage where seven-year-olds are even sent to tuition for as many as three to four different subjects.  

It seems this obsession with tuition for almost every other subject is rampant among urban as well as rural students.  

Tuition was initially intended as extra classes to help students with examination or with subjects they could not cope with. Now it has become somewhat of a necessity in the education system.  

There are numerous reasons for this trend. Students complain that some teachers withhold information thereby forcing them to take tuition classes from them. Also, some students or parents lack confidence in the schoolteachers and prefer to get help elsewhere.  

But I believe the most influential reason is the paper chase combined with weaknesses in the education system. These days there is a race to see who can get the most number of A’s for the SPM or STPM examinations.  

Educators at school and higher education level are pressured to deliver better academic results each year. If not, they are put on the hot seat.  

Salaries of schoolteachers are very lacklustre considering the amount of hours and work they have to put in.  

The classes are too big in most cases and teachers face time and resource constraints, so that the teaching-learning experience is often affected. It is not surprising then that many teachers resort to exam question spotting and drilling.  

Implications of tuition mania are varied, but I think the most detrimental long-term effect is that it creates rote-learning robots, where information is drilled and packed into students for regurgitation.  

Many have confessed to forgetting everything after they complete their major examinations. Tuition does little to teach students creative and critical thinking or contribute much towards personal growth.  

Our cupcakes from the system turned out to be square ones. Then, at university and post university level, we try to crop them into round ones, expecting them at that late stage to gain soft skills.  

Students also suffer deprivation of a proper childhood due to endless hours spent at tuition centres. There is no turning back the clock once this time has passed.  

The pressure to perform well can be too much for the youngsters to handle. The recent suicide of a 12-year-old girl when she didn’t get the UPSR results she expected should be an eye-opener. 

Reliance on tuition can also unfortunately encourage complacency in the school because students may start to depend entirely on their tuition sessions instead of focussing on lessons in class.  

Teachers should spend more effort in the classroom and pay more heed to students’ attention span by increasing their participation in lessons. 

No doubt our national curriculum has noble goals but perhaps the emphasis needs to be tweaked. Recently, the British national curriculum was changed to share a common format for all subjects – to stress on why the subject matters to the student. The ultimate objective is to create personal, economic and social well-being with development of skills for life and work.  

The philosophy: if students understand the relevance of subjects to their lives, inevitably interest and internal motivation would help them learn and excel. Rote learning, however, does not create motivation. Scoring in exams is mostly external motivation unless students have great drive to succeed. How many are truly like that? 

We are in danger of falling into the same trap faced by countries like Korea and Singapore, where it is the norm for parents to invest hard-earned cash into private tuition classes. To solve the tuition craze, the entire education mechanism needs to be refocused. Otherwise, this vicious cycle will prevail.  

Datuk Clement Hii is executive deputy chairman of LLL Lifelong Learning Network Sdn Bhd which promotes and coordinates lifelong learning among Malaysians.