On the Subject of Tuition in Malaysia

Why are tuition centres so successful in Malaysia?
Because all these "average" students need to score better grades in Malaysia public exams are:
-Constant personal attention
-Constant explanation
-Constant drilling exercises
-Tips and tricks to write better answers

And tuition centres can provide all those. Because Malaysian exams have such fixed answers and Malaysian students are so used to spoon-feeding. Even questions supposedly to encourage critical thinking among students end up having very fixed answers. For example, in the Malay papers there are such questions like:
"Pada pendapat anda...." (which translates to "In your opinion"....)

But in actual fact, a lot of teachers marking internal exams end up adhering strictly to the suggested answer scheme, and deducting marks for the students' own answers. =.=
So students like us end up panicking because we never know what is the correct answer. If we do, we would have made millions in lottery.

I am neither encouraging nor discouraging students from going to tuition. It all really depends on the teachers you have at school. If you think the teacher you have at school is explaining well (listen to him/her for once!) and you can cope, there is no reason to go for tuition in that subject. If the teacher you have is unfortunately not so good in explaining (or whatever reasons), and you're struggling to understand, going for tuition might just be a lifesaver.

Also some students go for tuition so that they will be forced to actually do some homework/exercises. If you are very lazy and can afford tuition, that is still a good idea (due to the nature of Malaysian exams).

In my own case, I have never gone for any tuition other than school arranged ones in the afternoon and extra English tuition for UPSR. I went for the English one for five years (9-13), two hours per week on Sundays and I am glad that I did because I love English but never had anyone to actually focus and correct my grammar and tenses. After 5 years it super improved because I was forced to do grammar exercises and write lots of essays, so now I can write essays naturally free of errors (if without checking, maybe one or two careless mistakes).

So in my opinion going for language tuitions (especially English) early during primary school years (please, no need to weigh poor kindergarten children down with tuition!) is a very, very great idea, because they won't have that much activities compared to secondary school students.

For PMR (Form 1-3) I dropped English tuition after Form 1 because I think it has done its job of polishing my English, and took Malay tuition because I was worried that I couldn't get an A for it. Was drilled with plenty of exercises and occasional essays, also encouraged on the uses of peribahasa (idioms). It wasn't superb, but gave a lazy bum like me a push to work more on Malay. My mother almost sent me to Chinese tuition but I refused because going to one tuition was almost too much for me.

For SPM (Form 4-5) I changed my Malay tuition because I moved away, and the drilling continues. No one goes to Chinese tuition around here so I don't have to worry about that. :P
Took only extra Accounting tuition because school was not able to arrange extra Accounting classes for me and a friend who decided to take Accounting as an extra to our Pure Science subjects. (Biology and Accounting lessons are held at the same time)
Tuition teacher was the class teacher at school so it's like having normal class lessons outside of class hours, that's all.

Did not take science tuitions and almost regretted (esp Chem and Physics) because I am not a science person and they posed a huge threat to my dream of straight As. Could not understand them much no matter how much self-study. At least I can self-study Biology.
Did not take add math tuition because my mother teaches add math and it would be weird. She did try helping me with it but sometimes she was too busy.

Here, my friends are my lifesavers because they went to science and math tuitions and spent a lot of time teaching me what they know. I believe it helps them to strengthen their knowledge in the process, but it was still a big sacrifice for them to stay back and help me with explanations when they could have gone home and rest. I know I've mentioned this a few times here but I still want to say thank you so much. :)

All I can say is if self-study doesn't work, no friends to help and you don't understand school teachers, the only alternative is go for tuitions. For me I don't like tuitions, in fact I hate them because they mean no more sleeping in the afternoon, which is what I need daily after school. Tuitions mean ending up super tired each day and feeling like all you do everyday is studying. :(

I have witnessed a lot of friends going to tuitions for every single day (right up to Sundays sometimes!) after school hours, and on some days they even have two tuitions back-to-back. Every single time they mentioned this it has successfully made me go "wtf?". They end up really tired and sometimes dozing off in class. I cannot understand this. A lot of them are forced by parents who think that tuitions=excellence and that's all they really want. Or sometimes it's just to make sure the children spend their time wisely (=studying).

I am lucky that I don't have to be subjected to that kind of horror. :/ I think tuitions are a nightmare. It has become commercialised and turned into a kind of lucrative business with even promotions and packages. :(
You know what, I think tuition should be done for free and in the form of volunteering.
It's just like volunteering to help disabled people, old folks, etc.
This is just like helping students who don't understand a particular topic/subject.

I don't encourage or discourage, I think sometimes tuition can be good as well.
But choose wisely and only go if it really helps.
If you end up learning nothing there, and basically just feeling like another school lesson, in my opinion it's much better to get some sleep at home.
At least your brain is charged up and you can save on tuition fees. ;)

And a super cute + funny picture to end this post (I found it while searching for pictures):

Aren't Huskies super cute even when they look that way? :D

Love,