@Janett, I have previously asked Miss Mok, my girl’s current Math Teacher for her certificates. I have also asked Miss Ho, an elderly English Teacher who claimed to be a HOD of English in a primary school for her’s as well. They gladly photocopied a set for me to assure they are all Ex-MOE trained teachers, as I was always very suspicious, partly because of my experiences with tutors who make false representations. Hence, I learned my lesson to always verify the teachers to ensure that the claims are not just another marketing gimmiks which may simply be too good to be true. It is hard to get good teachers nowadays. The Good Teachers are always prebooked months ahead by the parents, so there is no such thing as a desperate Good Teacher waiting for business to knock on their door or you could get one easily off the classified ads or tuition agency.


I had experienced tutors/centers who appropriated my desperation as a parent to sign up quickly. After the sign up, I was upset at the turnover of tutors. I have also witnessed the so called star tutor at the centre are originally NUS/NTU undergraduates tutoring at the centre to supplement their school fees. No offence to the undergraduates out there who are trying to earn an honest living to support themselves, I mean - what will these young undergraduates know about teaching conquer math, much less the PSLE Elementary Math?

Because Miss Mok is a Math Specialist and I think she has grown tired of difficult parents like me questioning and challenging her credentials and teaching methodologies, recently I noticed that she had pinned up some photographs of herself in the schools she taught which was taken during her tenure with MOE.

If you wished to ask for any teacher’s credentials, I am sure she will give you a photocopy of the teacher’s certificates.

I pity Kelvin Ong. We are also partly to blame for being gullible and I feel we as parents are accomplices in creating all these hype, gigantic PR jobs for him, further misleading other parents. I have known of one parent friend who consistently boasted about her son’s GEP classes with Kelvin Ong. She was a staunch supporter of Mr Kelvin and any less than favourable critique from me will succumb her to displeasure or possibly a temporary cold war. She had always remarked that I was sour grapes. After I had SMS her on this,she refused to talk to me ever again. I guess she thinks that I am gloating over her since she had spent a huge amount of tuition fees on Mr Kevin Ong but that was really not my intent.


Back 3 years ago, when tuition started to boom, CASE actually warned us about the hype and the best way to back up a tutor’s claims is to personally verify the tutor’s credentials. But i think as parents, we can come across as very petty to the tutors to check on these details as these are all very personal in nature.

Parents are partly to blame too: Case

By Amelia Tan

PARENTS duped by tutors are guilty of not checking credentials, says the Consumers Association of Singapore (Case).

Case received 19 complaints last year against tuition centres, tutors and education agencies for providing unsatisfactory services and making misleading claims.

Case executive director Seah Seng Choon said the responsibility of ensuring that only credible tuition teachers are hired falls on the parents.

One of the worst cases was highlighted last week when a bogus tutor was jailed two months for recommending an alleged Ministry of Education-approved programme costing $14,000. The woman claimed to be registered with the MOE, although private tutors do not need to be registered with the ministry.

However, a ministry spokesman said private schools which include tuition centres need to be registered with the MOE under the Education Act.

One complaint Case received was from a parent who was impressed by an advertisement from a tuition agency that guaranteed all its teachers were certified.

After hiring a tutor from that agency, the parent discovered that the tutor was not interviewed by the agency, uncertified and was merely assigned the job.

Another consumer hired a tutor who claimed to be trained by the National Institute of Education and MOE.

However after the first session, the tutor was unable to produce her qualifications and she could not even speak English. The agency demanded that the consumer pay for the lesson anyway.

‘Most of the cases we received were of parents who assumed the agencies are credible based on their (own) assurances,’ said Mr Seah.

‘I urge all parents to ask tutors to present their certificates on the first lesson.’

Parents whom The Straits Times interviewed said they hire tutors based on recommendations from friends and family members.

Regional human resource manager Winnie Ong, 38, hired a Chinese tutor for her daughters, aged 10 and 11, three years ago based on recommendations from friends.

‘I don’t want to hire someone whose background I am unaware of,’ she said.

‘It gives me peace of mind knowing that my friends have had good experiences with the teacher.’

Homemaker Laura Lim, 43, who hires tutors for her three sons, aged 10 to 17, checks on the tutors through feedback from her sons and monitors their progress regularly.

The principal of North Vista Primary, Mr Phua Kia Wang, said parents should avoid sending their children for tuition.

‘Tuition is unnecessary for the majority of students as there are many programmes in schools to help students, be it in English or Mathematics,’ he said.

‘I hope that parents realise that tuition places unnecessary stress on children.’

This article was first published in The Straits Times on Jan 1, 2009.

I wasn’t suprised that the newspaper played a huge part in contributing to his high profile success. He was featured in the newspapers a few time and whatever he said, it was published without any question. He wouldn’t have landed himself in this hot soup if he hasn’t over step his confidence that the Education Ministry wouldn’t rebut his claims. Reminds me of Durai from the NKF. Now that the truth is finally out, I am sure alot of parents are angry with him, after paying all those high tuition fees. This explains why, taking a leaf from my old bad experiences, that I am always a staunch propagandist to parents to personally check on the credentials of the tutors who will be coaching their children. If any tuition agencies or centre act sheepishly and suggested otherwise, you will know something is fishy lurking underneath. Good tutors are like GEMS. When you are lucky to have one, make sure you don’t give them away. They are usually booked months ahead.

@limlim., I agreed on the regulation to sift out the unqualified tutors as it is so easy to be a tutor without any qualifications. However, I disagreed that tuition in the form of enrichment should be banned. That is the discretion & choice of the parents to decide based on the needs of the child. I am doubtful that some discerning parents with kids like me, have gone through the local MOE curriculum system, and having to juggle our kid’s school work with our busy professional life would take to your views. Playing the devil’s advocate: IF Tuition is banned, I am all for it. However, I would propose all elitist schools to be banned too and they should be slowly merged with the neighborhood school "to be more inclusive with disregard for the disparity in grades or learning abilities" so to speak. I don’t even think there should be a band 1, 2 or 3 to start. All these should be banned if we believe the standrad prescription should apply to all!

@MikShar, most welcome.

My daughter has been under this Math Teacher, miss mok for 2 years and my wife is extremely pleased with her as there are not many teachers in this market who can teach Conquer & Olympiad math and even upper primary math. She make her best effort to call my wife weekly to update on our daughter’s progress in her class. Just my 2 cents worth of opinion as I have had bad experiences with my previous tutors. It was a waste of time & money when we finally discovered that not all tutors can teach math, even if they marketed themselves very well. It was very tough sourcing for a permanent teacher for my girl who needs urgent help to see her through to PSLE. Not sure about other teachers in this centre, but we know some of them has masters and had taught in MOE for a few years as HODs. If you are looking for NIE-trained School Teachers, here may be the correct place to explore as to whether this centre suits you.

Hi bellyhoney,


Sorry for the delayed reponse. I was away for a long business trip. Creative writing one week, English another week. They have 3 English teachers, so you may want to ask about the credentials of the English teachers and the MOE schools they had taught and let your child do a trial class to try out if she can fit with the teacher’s delivery style before confirming the sign up.

I believed their school’s policy on class size is 6. Because, a month ago, the centre’s supervisor called me for permission to allow 2 new parents’ children in P6 to join my girl’s Math class, increasing the class size presently from 6 to 8. I am okay with it. Shortly, I realised the new parents are both my male kakees…LOL. They told me they may want to give me call if I voted againsit their entry.

I formally sent my girl to Tiong Bahru Plaza for Creative Writing & English and I was upset with the tuition centre for marking her homework inaccurately on a few occasions. (My wife is an editor, feedback to me after she had checked her assignments). I realized her tutors are graduate part-timers who prepared their own teaching materials and are not MOE trained. After this episode, I hired a 3 personal tutors from the tuition agencies for her but it doesn’t work out because I caught one speaking Singlish to my daughter, found out the other lied about her qualifications and the third doesn’t measure up to my wife’s standard. After 5 painful months, a parent who is staying in the same condo recommended me to a small tuition centre. The parent shared with me that it was run by an English HOD & two teachers who resigned recently from a top MOE school to set up this tuition centre and best of all, they are all MOE trained and they understand the MOE syllabus very well. Anyway, I have no complaints. My daughter performed well above 75 for her English and I had also signed her up with this Math Teacher known as Miss Mok who used to teach in Catholic High & Raffles. Ever since my girl started last year, she has been scoring band 1 from band 3, consistently in the 90 marks range for her math. I attributed my girl’s achievement to the fact that her school is a neighbourhood school, hence the curriculum and CA test may not be as demanding as other very good school. But Miss Mok has always keep her on her toes by getting her to try out the very hard questions which I sometimes gave up trying. The other most important factor is that my girl likes her new tuition centre and she enjoyed working with her tuition teachers and classmates. It is situated behind the PSB academy infront of the Beo Crescent Food market where we have our breakfast . Maybe some parents out there in Tiong Bahru wants to explore this tuition centre as one of the many enrichment centre options. Just sharing to some desperate parents out there, it may not work for you but it does work for me. You need to make an appointment with them first before heading down. Their contact is 83885232