Tuition

Along with learning new ways of doing things in another culture with different values and societal norms, I’m also learning new meanings to attach to several English words. These include a “hotel” as a place for eating, “torch” as a flashlight, “encyclopedia” as a book full of quizzes/tests and their answers, and “smart” as nice or good. Another word that forced me to understand its meaning in a new way and also something new about the culture is “tuition.”

Here tuition does not mean fees for enrolling in a school, but rather denotes a period of 2-3 weeks over the long holiday (school break) that students are expected to attend classes and do homework. Tuition was outlawed by the new constitution (which was adopted in 2010) but has not yet been effectively removed. This month came the closest, when in many places schools shut down for fear because teachers were being arrested and schools were threatened to be closed down if they held tuition. We had tuition for some time, but then closed school abruptly one morning when the threat seemed too near.

I was glad that tuition was stopped, because I don’t think children should spend so much time in school. The article banning it in the constitution is focused on children’s rights. After some calculations, I discovered that most kids in the US spend only 40% of the time in school as many kids here each year. Now I have some time to accomplish a few other things and I hope that the children are able to relax some at their homes.