Students or Customers?

My colleagues from other courses commented during lunch yesterday about how more and more students have seen themselves as customers - who have paid their school fees and that the school or teachers should treat them well to offer the best service possible to satisfy their requests - to provide convenient time table so that they can do part-time jobs, to provide required materials to complete their assignments, to guarantee a pass, to guarantee winning in competitions, to guarantee jobs after graduation, to guarantee further study, success and prospect and so on ...

This phenomenon is getting popular but dangerous because once they see themselves as customers that they are buying a service then it should be guaranteed or they should have their money back (it is a big investment and a big buy after all).

BUT IT IS TOTALLY WRONG!

For education is not like simple buying of daily goods.  You don't get what you WANT in education, but what you NEED!  Yes, teachers are here to teach what you need, not what you want!  So if you want something because you have paid the money and the offers should be money worth to justify your ego as a customer, you are wrong, deadly wrong!

What we offer (the school and the teachers) is to show you the knowledge and direction to take on in your chosen career path, that's what you need, it's the methods of learning and the thinking and attitude that's matter, it's the content of the teaching not the form.

Sadly, "Teaching is not a lost art, but the regard for it is a lost tradition". - Jacques Barzun 

:(