Wednesday, Jun 12, 2013

Abu Dhabi: Nearly half of all parents in the emirate of Abu Dhabi who responded to an ongoing survey have reported that their children attend private lessons outside school, the Abu Dhabi Education Council (Adec) announced on Wednesday.

The results were obtained from a satisfaction survey that is currently being administered by the Adec to parents of children enrolled in both public and private schools. Of more than 40,000 parents who have participated so far, 47 per cent of them, representing more than 20,700 parents, said their children take private lessons in subjects such as maths, science, English and Arabic.

The survey is designed to gauge parents’ feedback on schools’ teaching and learning techniques, engagement in decision-making, significance of heritage within the curriculum, level of academic and career guidance provided, and other issues.

Children must resort to private tuition classes due to the poor quality of teaching at school and lack of opportunities to catch up on missed material, parents told Gulf News.

“My 15-year-old son was falling so far behind in his academics that I was worried he would not pass the Grade 10 exams this June. Moreover, the private school he was enrolled at did not have a physics teacher for months, and the school was not even assessing his knowledge of the subject. Eventually, I was forced to get him started on tuition classes last October,” said M.R., a Pakistani mother-of-four.

In addition to school fees of about Dh17,000 a year, M.R. said she and her husband had to shell out nearly Dh1,000 on private tutoring each week.

“Each hour-long class was priced at about Dh100, and maths lessons were even more expensive at Dh175 each. The quality of teaching is so bad here that my son even had to take lessons in English. He speaks the language fluently but his grades are still very weak due to insufficient attention by the teachers,” she added.

The mother said that she had even approached the school’s principal to insist upon better educational standards.

“I warned him that private tuition lessons are not encouraged, but he simply said that my son had to study harder. But how could he when the classes in school don’t even provide a proper basis?” she said.

Paid private tuitions are however discouraged by the Adec, and a strict warning was even issued last September to dissuade teachers and parents from the practice. As reported by Gulf News at the time, senior educational officials said school teachers who offered paid lessons at home could even be fired. Instead, they encouraged parents to stress additional free classes at schools.

“I do not believe any parent would want their children to attend additional classes after school if the teaching standards were good enough. But my daughter is currently in the ninth grade, and she is simply not able to tackle basic maths problems because teachers are not patient enough to help her,” said K. Nahar, a Bangladeshi homemaker in the capital whose daughter attends a private school.

The mother said she had checked with many private tutors but had been unable to afford the hourly rates.

“Eventually, I was able to find a graduate student who has generously agreed to lend an hour of his time every day to tutor her in maths and the sciences. Still, I would really prefer it if schools hired better trained teachers so that my daughter would not have to attend extra lessons in the evening,” she said.

May K., a Syrian resident said she regularly offered chemistry lessons for high school pupils.

“I offer classes all day long, and the demand is even greater during exam periods, when I provide back-to-back lessons for different groups of pupils,” she said.

Nearly 51 per cent of parents who responded to the Adec survey also said their children spent an hour or less each day on personal studying and homework, while only 6 per cent of participants said their wards spent three hours or more.

Satisfaction with pupils’ grades was also relatively low, with parents being least satisfied with results in Arabic, English and maths.

Dr Masoud Badri, executive director of research, planning and performance management at the Adec, added that parents had asked for more effective collaboration with schools, and more academic and career guidance.

“So far the rate of response from parents is high, and participation is expected to exceed that of last year, that is, more than 50,000 respondents,” he added.

By Samihah Zaman?and Nada Al Taher Staff Reporters

Gulf News 2013. All rights reserved.