Dear Editor,
I refer to the article captioned ‘Roopnaraine takes aim at extra lessons’ (SN, June 7) to offer the following comments.
It is time for this parallel education system, this underground learning economy, this pervasive abomination to be curtailed, if not dismantled. As the Minister said, it must be a “thing of the past.”
In the current environment, children are held hostage; parents compelled to financial anguish; and dedicated teachers insulted and mocked by this deliberate ‘dumbing down’ and neglect of our children during regular school hours day after day, so that the greedy and corrupt could profit.
Children have complained to me about victimization for not attending lessons offered by subject teachers; parents, poor and struggling, have expressed fear of the consequences of non-participation by their children in these off-hours classes, so they comply by finding dollars they don’t have to satisfy this educational piracy.
To be fair, there are students who need extra help. But it cannot be so many of them from virtually every school, including the private ones where rigorous and timely delivery of the syllabus is practised. This extra lessons business is an industry (obscenity) by itself, where the demand is manufactured during the regular work day. There they are: a brigade of heartless, calculating teachers, preying upon children and parents, and our future.
Some children, being children, are quick to recognize loopholes to capitalize upon, and join with teachers in extending the deception to their parents. It is as easy as “teacher don’t teach.” Thus, they get to socialize further with friends, at great expense, after school hours at the lessons place. Moreover, there are those children who look upon regular school hours as an opportunity to skylark, since they will pick up missing themes and knowledge during these extra lessons. Why pay attention during the day? This is how some of our young minds are being corrupted from an early age. And it starts with the teachers who cheat on the job.
Therefore, this extra lesson practice, system, industry makes frauds of us all. Let it stop. Put children, parents, conscientious teachers, and society out of this misery. And let this be done post-haste.
Yours faithfully,
GHK Lall
