It is often alleged that teachers don’t take classes. They force students to attend their tuition classes. I am myself a teacher. My experience is that it is very difficult to coax students for anything these days. They are quite aggressive. At the college level especially, they get together and start raising slogans at the drop of a hat. Why don’t they raise their voice when their teacher doesn’t take the class? Why don’t parents visit schools and colleges to complain against such teachers who compel students for tuition?

The fact is that this problem cannot be handled by hunting only the teachers. The solution of the problem needs a serious thought and sincere efforts. The first requirement is to enhance the value of classroom teaching in the eyes of students by giving proper weightage to the scores earned in board/university exams. Maybe eligibility can also be raised from mere 50% to 65 at least.

There should not be much disparity in the syllabi and pattern of examination between board/university exam and the entrance test to ensure that the student finds classroom also helpful in achieving his ultimate goal — admission in the college of his choice.

Extra coaching should be given in the school/college itself in the classes run at off times at rates much lower than what is charged by the private coaching centres. The money thus earned by the institution will add to the institution’s resources, out of which to keep the teacher’s interests going. The teacher can be paid extra for the extra work done. The teacher should be made liable to pay the income tax also for this additional income. Such a facility would prevent many students from going to the expensive coaching centres.

The solution lies not in arresting teachers but in understanding the problem in totality and finding solutions which create harmony and co-ordination among policy-makers, teachers, students and parents.

LALITA JAGMOHAN SINGH, Chandigarh

Empower the students: If we sincerely wish to end tuition, we should empower the student who is bullied or induced by the unscrupulous teacher to take tuition. We should make the teacher and the head of the institution accountable. We should devise a system of incentives that discourages teachers from giving tuition and encourage them to pursue further studies, curricular innovation and research. We should, at long last, initiate a dynamic restructuring of the entire edifice of education in which petty evils like tuition would die their natural death.

Dr. RAJESH K. SHARMA, Hoshiarpur

Private practice: Is this a government of empty skulls? One day it sends teachers to jail because they have been indulging in tuition. The next day it talks about allowing private practice to the serving doctors. If doctors can be permitted private practice, why not allow the teachers to give private coaching, especially for competitive tests and exams?

TUSHAR RATTAN, Hoshiarpur

Large syllabi: Education policy makers do not take into consideration the education levels of parents, teachers and students while framing syllabi of schools and colleges. The planners obtain syllabi of advanced countries, ignoring the local conditions and ground realities, and frame the new syllabus. The syllabi are very tough and lengthy.

In most of the cases teachers are not to be blamed. Private tuition is more a student’s requirement than a teacher’s creation.

Dr N.L. NARULA, Yamunanagar

A solution: One solution to this problem is that a centre for coaching be opened at each college where teachers must give extra coaching other than teaching the load prescribed by the UGC.

Students will get extra coaching and can prepare for other exams, that too at nominal rates.

R.S. UPPAL, Fatehgarh Sahib

Pay salary in time: A teacher is also a common man who has to buy his grocery, pay his telephone bills, electricity bills, send his children to moderate school and make some saving for future. So his salary and other dues should be paid regularly by the government.

G.K.S. SIDHU, Barnala

Allowed in Chandigarh: Strangely the Chandigarh Administration has not yet contemplated any action so far. It is common knowledge that many teachers from colleges, including Govt. Colleges, are engaged in this murky business. The menace is not confined to fleecing alone. Those who cannot afford or evade attending such classes are harassed, given either bare minimum pass marks or are even failed in internal assessments and college examinations.