Students’ reliance on guidebooks growing

Guidebooks have engulfed the city bookshops. Private tuition is on the rise as textbooks are not finished in classrooms. Thus, students’ reliance on guidebooks is growing.

“The load of textbooks on children’s shoulders is also increasing. They are expected to be erudite before they wrap up their basic education,” says Wafa Zaidi, a mother of five kids.

“Various publishers get in touch with the private school authorities and they are convinced through fair and unfair ways to choose books for their students. As a consequence, students are compelled to rely on guidebooks in the market for additional help,” says Zain Ali, a schoolteacher from Dhoke Hafiz.

“At times, textbooks are upgraded, so neither parents, nor teachers can manage this as the training of tutor for teaching new subject-matter is barely adequate. Therefore, they rely on guidebooks,” adds Zain.

“This system is not any problem for those families who can afford help through private tuition, but it is too difficult for students of poor families,” says Ulfat Hussain from Shah Khalid Colony.

“It is difficult to quickly improve teachers’ quality, to make textbooks easy to follow, to reorient the whole education system; but it is easy to cut the number of books on children’s shoulders, to ban assigning homework, and to prevent needless recurrent changes in textbooks,” says Fasahat Zaidi from Fazal Town.

“Good exam results are in abundance nowadays in our city. See the banners of private schools fluttering in the air across electricity poles. But the city residents hardly take them seriously, they rather get suspicious about the banners denoting good results. They just take it as propaganda to deceive them into believing that their school is the best choice for their children as it will save them from the financial burden of tuition centres,” says Nisar Turabi from Dhoke Lilhyaal.

“This state of affairs is seriously worrisome, since if the children end up securing top positions under the guise of school publicity stunt without really learning anything, they will lag behind in competition in their real life,” adds Nisar.

“Our education system has been built in a way that it forces everyone to run after high numbers and top positions to ensure success in life,” laments Haider Reza, a retired government school teacher.

“The private schools are seen competing with each other to the extent that they employ workers of the secondary board of education in their schools. Schools at least know what the parents of the students want from them. They are successful in that sense that they are able to buy top positions to attract more admissions, but on the whole they have botched the nation,” adds Haider.