Okaz newspaper T HE problem of private tutors has existed in our society for a very long time. People have become accustomed to seeing flyers in all major public venues in which a private tutor offers his services. And although the Ministry of Education has urged teachers to maximize their efforts inside classrooms and spoken against the practice of hiring private tutors, they continue to do brisk business. The media has also played a role in exposing the way private tutors take advantage of desperate students and their families by forcing students to rely on them to do well in school. Despite all of this, the demand for private tutors remains high and we need to ask ourselves why our students are shunning their teachers and willing to pay big money to private tutors in order to do well in school. At the end of every academic year, the media writes about private tutors but I don't think warning people is enough to put an end to this problem. The market for private tutors is linked to demand and supply and it seems that the number of private tutors has increased as more and more students enroll in our schools. One high school student Okaz daily spoke with said he hired a private tutor and paid him SR400 to summarize his math book because the curriculum was full of unnecessary information and the student had a hard time identifying the important chapters in the book. Unless we take concrete steps to improve both the curriculum we teach and the caliber of teachers in our schools, students will not think for themselves and continue to rely on private tutors to help them do well in school. __
