The Singapore Indian development Association (SINDA) has come up with a new, improved tuition programme to help students study smart and stay focused on examinations.

But it is not raising its fees, SINDA vice-president Dileep nair said at parenting seminar yesterday. The SINDA Tutorials for Enhanced Performance(Step) programme will condense the existing 34-week mathematics and science tuition course for secondary students into a 16-week course, to make it more attractive to students.

During the weekly two-hour sessions, SINDA tutors will cover difficult topics and teach students to study smart and tackle examination questions. Mr Nair told The Sunday Times that SINDA wanted to "plug the gaps", equip the students with learning skills, and go beyond the academic material.

"Besides covering the academic syllabus which the schools were already doing, we wanted to do more and teach them how to remain exam-focused and organise their time," he said.

Express and Normal students will be tutored in separate classes, to cater to their different learning needs. The programme will take in 500 Primary 1 and 2 pupils, up from the current 300.

These changes will keep the programmes revelant to today's education system at no extra cost to the students, said Mr. Nair.

SINDA now spends an average of $1.2 million a year running these classes, up from $800,000 a year when the programme was launched in 1992. That works out to a subsidy of about $215 for each student. They now pay only about $600 a month. Students who can't afford to pay are tutored for free.