No offence teachers, it's happy Tutor's Day

AHMEDABAD/VADODARA: Ankita Agarwal, an HSC (commerce) 10th rank-holder in Ahmedabad this year, is very candid about her academic excellence. The credit is mostly to herself for her dogged perseverance and then to ''Rahul Sir'', her private tutor for Business Maths, Accounts and Statistics,who used to egg her on to succeed by making her slog really hard.
Please don''t get Ankita wrong.She gives credit to her teachers at Mt Carmel and has tremendous respect for them. Late Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan may not appreciate the idea, but tutors are now increasingly being seen as those laying the foundation of academic success and brilliant careers.
And, the bouquets that many tutors will be getting on Sunday will be bigger and brighter than their counterparts in schools. "Tuition is must for all students to excel. Private tutors work hard, give personalised attention, teach extremely well and constantly encourage to do better.
In fact, most of my friends used to do tuition homework in school and not bother about the school homework," Ankita told TOI. Incidentally, Ankita, who is in first year BCom in HA College, is waiting for next year when she becomes eligible to enrol in tuition classes for CAT.
School teachers teach but you have to take tuition from a good coaching class if you want to succeed, seems the mantra that prompts many to book in-demand ''Sirs'' one or two years in advance!
"I had three tuition Sirs from whom I took personal coaching and they had a big role in my success. In fact, I give 50-50 per cent credit to my tuition Sirs and school teachers," says the diplomatically correct Ankit Srivastav, a student of Vidyanagar High School who ranked second in Gujarat in HSC commerce exams.
"Our school teachers are sometimes clueless about some subjects as they do not upgrade their knowledge. But tutors are up-to-date on the subject and teach even the restructured course. Most importantly, they give personal attention," says Shruti Shah, a student of class XI.
It is not just the students who attribute their success to tuition teachers but parents too feel that actual learning happens in tuition classes.
"I have great regard for my children''s tutor, who has been teaching my kids for seven years now. School teachers restrict themselves to classrooms and sometimes are partial to some children. On the other hand, tutors ensure the syllabus is covered well within time and conduct revision," says Dipti Rakhe, mother of two children.
Personal tutors too concede that students have started looking up to them more. "I have noticed one thing during the past five years that students have started bunking school to do well in my tests," says Rakesh Darji who runs classes in Satellite. He also admits that many of his previous students never fail to send him a card or call him on Teacher''s Day.
It is a time for cheers for Revathy Ramanan, a tuition teacher conducting classes for 23 years in Vadodara. "My students always keep in touch with me. This year, too, I have received mail from my students settled in the United States thanking me for the personal guidance," says Ramanan.