Asia spending billions on tutors: study
-
I am all for regulating the tuition, but I disagreed with a few parent friends of mine who are adamant that PSLE & tuition should be banned. If education goes too easy, something is wrong. And how do we measure the performances of each children and sieve them to different learing abilities & apitudes. What I am for is to introduce more variety of subjects in schools that children can excel in and let them choose which core subjects they wish to pursue for their final year leaving examination. Like my daughter, she is very good in Languages and Science. It’s Math that she is having difficulty in grasping and she absolutely hates math, especially Conquer Math & Algebra. Hence it took me great pains to source her a tutor who is able to incite her interest to do math and explain to her the concepts clearly. I also realised that her Math teacher’s explanations are very “chim”, hence I need to get extra help for her by getting somebody who is able to break down the concepts for her at a much slower pace. (Because I do not want her PSLE aggregrates to be dragged down by Math, though my wife, I and her form teacher are pretty sure that she will score A for all her subjects, except Math). And the most angry thing I am about my friends are that they do not put their actions where their heart & mouth is. They said that Tuition is unfair, yet they are so “kiasu” when it comes to who their school subjects teachers are. Now I understand in the Parents’ committee that they developed this ranking system for teachers in school, and some parents actually pester the principal to get the teachers for their children’s classes for the next school term. They also “die die” must put their children in a branded school, despite the long travel journey. I am also totally flabbergasted when a parent friend requested me to help her draft a complaint letter to the principal, simply because her son’s English teacher is not a graduate.
-
An interesting article in the newpaper
Should the tuition industry be regulated?
The New Paper | Sat Aug 4 2012
THE private tutor was once asked by a tuition agency to lie that he was a university undergraduate, even though he was from a polytechnic.
Another time, a child burst into tears after seeing him because the tuition agency had told the child to expect a female teacher.
Owner of tuition agency Law Han Wei has seen his share of bad eggs in the industry when he was a private tutor more than 10 years ago.
On Sunday, it was reported in The Sunday Times that Mr Kelvin Ong, who owns AristoCare centre, was neither a student nor teacher of the Gifted Education Programme, as he had claimed.
Checks by the Ministry of Education had revealed that his credentials were false. He was told to remove the claims from his website.
Complaints against the industry are not uncommon. The Consumers Association of Singapore (Case) said that in 2010, there were 29 cases of complaints regarding tuition centres and agencies.
Last year, there were 31 cases; and as of June 30 this year, there were eight cases.
Common complaints include consumers seeking redress and the failure to honour the contract.
For example, one parent felt that it was unfair that the tuition centre required one month’s notification for termination. Another parent was upset when the tutor did not turn up as promised by the tuition agency.
Tuition centres have to be registered with the Ministry of Education (MOE) because they are run as schools.
Tuition agencies, which match students to tutors, have to be registered as a business with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority.
And then there are individual tutors, who are freelancers and thus, unregulated.
The question now is, should the lucrative tuition industry be regulated? Presently, there is no regulatory body which oversees the industry.
People in the industry are split over this option. Mr Tony Tan, who is the founder of SmartLab, a chain of tuition centres, since 1999, is against the idea.
He said: "Regulation would mean higher cost for the centres and the higher cost will eventually be passed on to the parents and students."
Mrs Marietta Koh, who is in her 40s, has a daughter in Primary 4 and spends about $1,000 every month on tuition and enrichment.
As a former teacher in the mainstream schools and current tuition teacher at Mind Stretcher Tuition centre, she does not think that regulation is necessary.
She said: "I believe most parents are savvy enough to make cross-comparisons and will know which are the tuition agencies that do not pass muster."
Mr Law, 32, founded Star Zest Tuition Agency in 1999. He said that his agency has a database of 40,000 tutors and receives between 500 and 1,000 inquires every month. Of this, about 30 per cent are successful matches of tutors to students
Mr Law thinks that the MOE should be responsible for regulating the tuition industry and suggests an accreditation programme for tuition teachers.
"For instance, all tuition teachers could undergo a simple test conducted by MOE,"Mr Law said.
MP Baey Yam Keng, who is also a member of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for education, thinks that it will be a challenge to regulate the tuition industry because it is made up of both commercial players and freelancers.
He said: "A regulatory body may help to establish a minimum standard and handle complaints, but a lot of resources would have to be spent to catch a few dishonest players.
"It is still the onus of the parents to check the qualifications of their children’s tutors."
Dr Intan Azura Mokhtar, also a member of the GPC for education, said: "It is important that the tuition industry should not play into the fears of parents, who want the best for their children."
She added: "It should be the responsibility of the tuition centres to verify the credentials of their teachers, since they are registered under MOE. "But it is very difficult to go after every individual tutor, because there are so many of them."
And there is no question that this industry is lucrative. A Straits Times article in 2010 reported that Singapore parents spent $820 million on private tuition in 2008,up from $470 million a decade earlier.
In 2010, Mr Law’s tuition agency had an annual turnover of between $200,000 and $300,000.
Last year, his turnover was almost $400,000 after he changed the system of running his agency.
Mr Law said: "I focused on quality control of the tutors and kept in close contact with the parents.
He added: "We were no longer just an agent, and when the parents feel satisfied with us, they will keep coming back."
Mrs Koh agreed that eventually, the quality of the tuition centre or agency will determine if they survive in the industry.
She said: "Some tuition agencies do not even advertise as they have long wait lists simply through word of mouth. As such, weaker players that do not measure up to parental expectations will get weeded out in due course. "
Executive director of Case, Mr Seah Seng Choon, said: "The numbers of complaints, although small, seem to be creeping up.We are watching this trend.
"With the demand for tuition growing, there will be tutors entering the market with dubious qualifications like in this case involving AristoCare centre.
"Consumers must bear in mind that this industry is not regulated and, as such, very much depends on parents to verify the claims made by such tutors."
"We like to urge consumers to do their due diligence and check the credentials of the tutors they engage for their children. They should verify the tutor’s credentials with the MOE or the institutions which issue the credentials."
Mr Baey, who used to be a tuition teacher during his national service days, thinks that regulation will affect the many young people in universities and polytechnics, who give tuition to earn extra money.
He said: "The role of a tutor is not just to help a child with his school work, but he can also help to motivate the child.
"Regulation may allow verification of the tutor’s qualifications, but it does not give an indication of the tutor’s quality."
This article was first published in The New Paper. -
limlim:
$160 for 12 lessons?
pre school is cheaper i think...
Hello! It looks like you're interested in this conversation, but you don't have an account yet.
Getting fed up of having to scroll through the same posts each visit? When you register for an account, you'll always come back to exactly where you were before, and choose to be notified of new replies (either via email, or push notification). You'll also be able to save bookmarks and upvote posts to show your appreciation to other community members.
With your input, this post could be even better 💗
Register Login