The Indian school education system today has become synonymous with evening coaching classes—or tuitions, as we like to call them. A question I’m asked a lot by parents is: Should I send my kid for coaching?
Today, it’s almost a given that to get the highest grades, you have to take extra help in the evenings. It’s a cycle that is promulgated by a couple of factors. The first is the parents’ general belief that without tuition, their kid won’t have that edge against every other kid on the planet going for extra lessons.
Second is the view of the kids, which is that because they anyway have to go for tuition in the evenings, they don’t really need to pay attention in class. For this reason, all of a sudden, tuitions become far more important than they need to be. You can sleep through school and catch up on what you missed in tuition later.
Some teachers recognize the potential tuition classes have for earning a steady supplementary income and start condoning the students’ attitude. And the cycle continues.
Tuition, then, becomes the main avenue for education, instead of the supplementary source it was originally intended to be. That’s where I believe we’re getting it wrong. I don’t have anything against taking tuitions—in fact, I would encourage it when required.
But there are the two key words—when required. As for me, I took tuition. All credit goes to my mum and dad, who did the research to find the best tutors within their budget and then spent all their free time picking up and dropping me to various extra classes.
Because I studied in a boarding school, I could only take tuition over the summer and winter breaks—three months in the year. But I realized that the tuitions had a high cost for my parents—not only when it came to their finances but also when it came to their time and energy. I appreciated that and made sure that I tried my best to make the most of these classes.
So far, we’re assuming that you’ve inculcated (or have committed to inculcate) the habits that we’ve gone over to maximize your results. This includes taking the right notes, paying attention in school, etc. If you’re with us so far, let’s continue.
Tuitions are a supplement. Remember to treat tuitions as the supplementary source of education and not the primary one. The primary driver should be you—your notes, your effort, your motivation. Tuitions are just here to give you a boost. All those around you, who treat tuitions as the be all and end all of their 12th-grade preparations, will never make it to where you’re headed.
That said, if you are taking tuition classes, here’s how you can make the most of them.
1. The Right Tutor
When choosing which tuition to attend, I can’t stress enough the importance of a good teacher. The right one can make all the difference. I was lucky that my parents went out of their way to find the best tutors within their budget. They asked around—friends, other parents, teachers, even kids a year older—to find out who the more respected tutors in town were. Work with your parents to do the same. Do not succumb to the temptation of going to a tutor because all your friends are going there. For this one year (at the very least), you have to chart and tread your own path.
One thing most of my tutors had in common was they didn’t waste any time. They made us write, write, write, and then write some more. They gave us notes and they made us write out answers to questions. Make sure you find a tutor who is a hard taskmaster and will push you that extra mile.
2. The Duration
The problem with year-long coaching is that it drags on much longer than it needs to. The students and the teachers both know that they have a full year ahead of them, and they tend to take it easy. That’s the last thing you want to do in your board year. I only attended coaching three months in my 12th grade, and in retrospect, that worked out perfectly. The coaching was intense; the tutor and the students couldn’t afford to waste any time, and we made sure we didn’t. As it turns out, three months is the perfect duration to comfortably finish the full year’s syllabus.
3. Finances
Another advantage of a shorter, more intense tuition period is that you can now spend higher per class, assuming your parents have a fixed budget. This is a crucial point most parents don’t factor in. Often, some of the best tutors in town are the most expensive (not a rule, but this is a fair assumption to make these days. More people go to them because they are good tutors. As demand goes up, so does their asking price). It’s possible that you might not be able to afford studying with them all the year round (not that you’ll need to anyway). Taking coaching for a shorter, say three- month, period allows you the option of spending more per class. Alternatively, you now also have the option of studying in a smaller group size, as these tend to be more expensive than larger batch tuitions. Which brings us to…
4. The Study-Group Size
This is purely personal preference, but the ideal group size should lie somewhere between one and six students. The smaller the group, the more personal attention you will get. In smaller groups (or in one-on-one coaching), you’ll be able to clarify each doubt that you have (and you should have a bagful of doubts). The lessons will be tailored to your needs and will, therefore, benefit you more.
However, some people enjoy reviewing their materials with a group of friends or classmates. Such groups work best when they are kept small (four or five others), with people of similar academic aptitude. The advantage of such study groups is that they:
Facilitate debate and an exchange of ideas.
In this case, try to make sure that you’re surrounded by a bunch of students who are smart and eager to learn. Such a peer group will push you to become better.
1. Help You Arrive At New Perspectives
If you study on your own, you’ll always view your subject from the same lens—yours. Getting a new perspective on a subject can help you learn more thoroughly. Study groups are the perfect places to challenge yourself. You will be surrounded by different viewpoints on topics. This will force you to think more about your position, and will, therefore, develop your critical-thinking skills while helping you study.
2. Allow You To Improve Your Study Method
Over time, you will have developed your own study method. While yours may work seamlessly, you can find means to improve it. By joining a study group, you’ll observe a variety of study methods and can then develop your own routine by integrating the best methods with your own.
3. Break The Monotony
Studying on your own can become monotonous over extended periods of time. Because of the social aspect of a study group, you will always have someone to discuss the topic with when you start struggling or find the topic tedious. In addition, the auditory factor of study groups can help utilize an extra sensory means to retain knowledge.
4. Fill In Learning Gaps
By comparing notes with other students, you can evaluate your accuracy, fix any errors and get ideas for better note-taking. In such groups, effective ways to imbibe knowledge are:
- Working through chapters together.
- Quizzing one another as you go through chapters.
- Comparing class notes and reviewing material to ensure that you haven’t missed any critical point.
As you can see, study groups can be helpful for many students, but not all. So it is worth spending some time introspecting about what has worked best for you in the past, before you decide on the kind of environment.
Excerpted with permission from ‘How I Topped The Boards & You Can Too!’ by Rupa Publications.