THE preparation time before final exams in schools is increasingly being spent by parents of school pupils searching for and employing private tutors for revision. Various walls and water tanks around the Kingdom bear witness to this phenomenon with a multitude of contact numbers pasted on them by private tutors looking to provide their services in this time of need. Saudi Gazette has met a number of such students, their parents, education officials and a psychiatrist to investigate the reasons why private tutors are sought on such a widespread scale just before the final exams. Ayman Sha'baan is an Egyptian private tutor in mathematics who has also been working as a teacher for the past 20 years in Jeddah, and he claims to support the idea of private tutions in such circumstances. “Taking private lessons is a necessity in some government schools where the teachers are not capable of delivering proper material to students,” said Sha'baan. “Students will consequently not pay much attention in class, and will then require private lessons at home.” He added that two weeks prior to the start of final exams, parents start searching for an established private tutor with the explicit requirement that the entire year's syllabus (for a subject) be covered in a single week, costing them upward of 2,000 riyals. The arrangement is such, that the tutor will only select the important points in the entire year's syllabus, and cover those questions that are likely to appear in the exam paper. Mathematics, Chemistry and English seem to cause many students the most grief, so tutors are urged to focus on them. Fatma Mustafa is another private tutor who has been in this field for the past decade, and she also supports the idea that private tuitions are helpful, albeit for those who haven't studied too hard during the academic year. She also mentioned that secondary level private lessons are much more difficult to conduct than intermediate level. “I was treated very badly by two female secondary level students who treated me like a servant, rather than as ateacher,” she complained, adding that such cases are rare and they have not deterred her from this field. Secondary level education also gains a higher importance because exam results are closely related to university entrance, and Umm Taner, a Jeddah-based mother of four children claims that it is university entrance, more than anything, which pushes parents to seek private tutors. “Students need private tutors when teachers don't give them much attention in class, and they get confused about how to learn the subject material,” she explained. “However, the number of students in a class is also important, with less than 25 students making it easier for children to understand what is being taught.” She added that a teacher's experience in teaching is also instrumental in capturing students' attention. She claimed that her sons have never received any private lessons at home, because they tend to get confused if taught by a private tutor, and are more relaxed with their teachers in school who explain everything thoroughly through exercises and homework. “I think taking private tuitions at home are for those students who don't yet know how to help themselves and don't pay attention to their teacher while in class,” she stated. One of those she accuses, however, strongly advocates a case for taking tuitions prior to final exams. Jasser Shurrab is a student at Anjal Al-Aqiq school in Jeddah, and he indicates that the reason why private lessons are being so popular before the exam period is because of the Internet and television. “Many students are weak in their studies because they are preoccupied with the Internet and television at home, don't complete their homework and ignore their parents' efforts to control them,” he explained. “Private lessons them become an essential tool to pass exams.” Jasser's school offers extra lessons from the ‘relay center', where an hourly fee reaches up to 50 riyals. However, Jasser points out, these lessons are taught by those same teachers who make the lessons in class so ‘boring'. “We need other teachers who have specialized in giving these exra lessons in the relay centers, then maybe students will never need private tuitions,” he stated. Arguing against Jasser's view is Omaima Khamis, the director of education media for girls in Jeddah, who claims that private tuitions are a cumulative phenomenon that make the relationship between the student and education a stagnant and ineffective one where students only learn to copy and paste information from the book and apply it to the exam. She argues that there is no learning involved. “I am against private tuitions because it causes students to become dependent on someone else to solve their education problems,” Khamis asserted. “The information they learn therefore becomes something to fill the exam paper with rather than to consider it as education or a kind of lifestyle.” She added that the problem lies with the educational system which offers severe limitations in how students are taught, but solving this dilemma requires time in order to provide quality syllabi material and qualified teachers. Dr. Mohammed Al-Hamid, a consultant psychiatrist at the Center for Psychology and Behavioral Treatment in Jeddah, spoke to the Saudi Gazette and said that the accrual rate of secondary students has a strong influence on the likelihood of seeking private tutors. “Many parents are exerting a lot of pressure on their children by investing heavily in private tuitions to ensure excellent marks in order to gain entrance to professional degree programs at University,” Dr. Hamid explained. He added that this phenomenon derives from established social problems, with parents having a set of high expectations from their children, particularly in terms of career choice. There is an overwhelming desire, in short, for children to become doctors and engineers. He did mention, however, that the presence of ‘relay' centers in schools is a good step, but much more needs to be done within those centers to provide an efficient and effective alternative to private tuitions. “To aid these centers, the Ministry of Education has to apply formal sanctions (on private tutors and tuition centers) to curb this phenomenon, increase the number of qualified teachers in relay centers - specifically trained for that post - and create motivations for teachers to do their job well,” said Dr. Hamid.
