A Year Two student was allegedly caned. leaving her with welts and scars by a tuition teacher for not completing her work on time.
“The girl’s stepfather said she had welts on her hands and legs when she came home from the centre in Malacca at about 7.15pm on April 12. He said the girl was sent there at around 2pm.
““I was shocked to find the marks and called the centre.
““The teacher said my stepdaughter is slow in learning and did not complete her homework. That’s why they beat her.
““Although they had told us they were using that method to teach the children, I did not think they would beat her to that extent,”” he said, The Star reported.
It may seem odd to many that parents, knowing very well that a tuition centre uses corporal punishment to push students to study, actually pay money and send their children there.
Students, from pre-school itself, are ferried to tuition centres, teachers’ homes and any other academic enhancement centres, only to improve the children’s performance and marks in schools.
And one can only conclude that this is what happens when the education system’s emphasis is only on academics and winning.
Parents and teachers can be blamed, but the main thing is the system which has always been extremely exam-oriented that even attempts to ensure changes in the system to prepare the children for the world are met with much opposition.
The parents and carers will definitely get flak for sending the girl to such a tuition centre, but one can argue in defence that all the parents wanted was a tuition centre that will ensure the children delivers the marks and it was not logical to think a child would be abused for not completing her work.
The grandfather of the girl was reported as saying that this was allegedly not the first time the girl has been caned at the tuition centre, “but usually they only beat her on the hands”.
Once again, it may seem preposterous for adults in these days to allow others to hurt their children, but when one analyses, could four adults (the parents and the grandparents) and a horde of other parents who send their children to the same centre, be insane completely?
Or are they desperate to ensure that their children attain those marks needed to make it in life?
Many of us parents would have lamented how we do not want to push our children to score high marks, but if we do not, the children will end up lagging behind the others, whose parents are pushing them.
Then again, in getting their straight A’s, we ask again if that would that make them successful people? How many of the successful people in this country were actually top scorers in UPSR, PT3 or SPM?
Should the tuition teacher be the one getting the counselling and punishment, or should it be the parents? Or should it be those in charge of the education system – for having pushed the parents to send their children to such a tuition centre?
Zakiah Koya
Hornbill Unleashed 
Leave a comment