Private tuition and coaching centres are swamping the urban territories and there is no stopping to it. Formally known as shadow education as it takes off from genuine education system, the latest phenomenon has become more of a rat race for the elites in the country.
This is exactly what is happening in the entire Asia. Private supplementary tutoring is rampant in Asia when compared globally. Given the mushrooming of this industry, institutes within a stones throw in future is no wild guess.
Where private tutoring can be a reminiscent of inefficiencies in the traditional schooling system, it might not surface as a successful supplement. This is true as private tuitions and coaching centres in many instances have become not just additional but the main source of income for teachers.
With salaries below the national poverty lines, the teachers are left with no choice - another shortfall of the conventional public sector educational system. In that vein, the system of tuitions is clouding the education planning and sustainable public and private financing of education.
And as if the economic growth within the country was already not inconclusive, the rising income and social disparity has in part come at the heels of shadow education. Tuitions are not only common in urban areas but also widespread in the rural districts. According to the latest numbers by the South Asian Forum on Educational Development, around 11-12 percent of the children in rural areas take private tuitions.
Even if the aim is to increase a childs intellect and supplement its learning, the dark side of this shadow cannot be overlooked. It is less about remedial help for students and much more about competition and creation of differentials, the words of Asian Development Bank echo in the abyss between the poor and the rich.
This is supported by the well established fact of the rich being able to afford more than the poor, and the urban citizen sending his child off to the nearest tuition centre more easily than the rural dweller.
What is more staggering is that tuition fee accounts for hefty part of a rural households income when compared to urban areas. A major reason for this jumps out from the fact that a significant portion of people in the rural areas send their children for tuitions, and that the tuition bills are rising against the backdrop of a tad increase in household income.
Not to forget the rise of undocumented industry as result. Given the number of tuition and coaching businesses and just a hint about their revenues, at least the tax man is not happy.