In my student days, tuition classes were unheard of..... or, to be more exact, they were for those who could not cope with academics in regular schools...children who failed regularly. So they were unheard of...you did not boast that your son needed tuition. In fact to my great humiliation, I had to go for tuition to improve my Hindi when I moved to a small UP town in my 6th class. Then slowly, the concept of tuition changed. It was the class geniuses who went for coaching so that they could perhaps " learn" differential equations in the 5th class!!!

Of late, some of the more 'modern' parents agree that coaching classes are not good and instead send their 6 year olds to "Brain Gyms" where the children learn to use the abacus, do mental arithmetic, Vedic math etc. Of course, this is helpful in boosting a child's confidence since he can multiply and divide fast and arrive at the answer before his less fortunate friends who count on fingers can.

But do these really boost the child's cognitive skills? Some evidence that it may not