It is strange to hear from the parents that some tuition centres in Jaffna and the North or perhaps Sri Lanka in general, are still practising corporal punishments like caning and using abusive words. The surprising event was that even the A/L students both girls and boys get beaten at these centres.
At schools, corporal punishments, which were on the peak before 90s, were banned some years back. However, then and there some village school lower form teachers cane the children. A little girl of nine years from my neighbourhood told that she could not write her homework and the reason revealed was that her class teacher battered her on the knuckles of the fingers and she feels the pain even now. It is really heartbreaking news!
Besides, both the O/L and A/L ‘struggle to compete’ in these systems of examination in Sri Lanka which are a strange thing in the western world. At this juncture, private educational institutions take this opportunity as a power in their hands. This resulted in verbal abuse, throwing notebooks, dusters and chalks on the students’ faces and caning particularly the female students in public against our cultural values and they leave many parents to feel painful.
What it is all about is, the students in the G.C.E (A/L) are matured enough to understand the value of education and the purpose for attending the tuition classes, paying their parents’ hard-earned money. In case, if not, they, definitely, will face the music. Nothing can be achieved by force, a fact. Certain tuition centres want to promote their name and fame in order to accomplish their popularity; they torture the students. Many a student is chicken-hearted to bear the tough and ruthless treatments by the ‘tuition masters’ or ‘tuition sirs’, the pedagogues. Instead of listening and looking for signs of trouble, teachers put the students in trouble and make them ‘asylum’ seekers.
The mushroomed tuition centres only focus on the production of ‘high results’, not of well-rounded persons. They blow their trumpet to increase the number of students by advertising deliberately. In addition, the tuition centres have tough competition with one another in producing the best results in a greater number. As a result, the students are being the scapegoats, unfortunately. Students are in a dilemma either to go to the tuition or discontinue avoiding inconsiderate reprimands. Tuition centres have become the places of rote learning and money making.
Personality differs from person to person, so they should not treat all alike. Many students come from different livelihoods with unfolded misery and poverty. Teachers are meant to disseminate knowledge and streamline discipline and if they derail from the phenomenon and act like ‘bullies and thugs,’ how can we expect the students to become excellent professionals? It is sad to note that so far the products of our schools and tuition centres have rarely produced any significant scientific or technological innovation or discovery or social reforms, except for a very few compared to the products of the developed world. We ‘manufacture’ routine professionals capable only to practise what is learnt, not to innovate. Therefore, teachers should build a warm stress-free environment by taking the roles as guide, facilitator, mentor, role models to nurture students.
Subajana Jeyaseelan
Vavuniya Campus
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