Tuition nation

Recently (okay, not so recent), there is an article on straits times regarding the tuition nation. It's here, for those who wants to read it.

The article talks about Singapore having such a high tuition penetration rate, that for every 100 students, there are 97 students have tuition. Ignoring all the sampling biasness and sampling method, it's a whopping 97% tuition penetration rate. This phenomena is exacerbated by the fact that many of these students have multiple tuition, so in fact, we're looking at a penetration rate of more than 100% (if say, each student takes more than 1 subject for tuition).

Why had we come to this stage? I do not wish to comment on it in this posting.

Here, I just want to talk about the ironies of tuition/education/school.

1. Ex or current teachers are the preferred choice for parents when choosing tutors. These are highly paid, perhaps to the tune of twice the normal rate (I'm talking about $80 to $150 per hour). Students are sent to schools to be taught by MOE trained teachers. They didn't perform well enough, so they were sent to tutors who are preferably MOE ex or current teachers. If school teachers can't help them, will these teachers-cum-tutors help?

2. Classes in school have class size of around 30-40, with the norm being 40. Some of the tuition group classes I knew have class size close to 30. Yes, it's cheaper than private tuition (can be half the price of private 1-1 tuition). School is cheap too - that's why the class size swells up so much. Thus, the poor students go from one formal school to another informal school. Does it help?

3. Elite schools draw in the best students. They get the best results, which attracts the best students in. Chicken and egg problem? Which comes first - good schools or good students?

4. Elite schools with specialised programs (IB/IP) have teachers who think like this - students are so smart, I'll just give them worksheets and let them learn themselves. School fees range from a few hundred, easily a few multiples of government schools. Almost all of them have tuition because (I dare say) the teachers can't teach. Many parents have told me about that many of their kid's classmates are have tuition, and learn way in advance of school. In fact, teachers expected their kids to have tuition to 'supplement' school work.

5. Parents select their tutors based on their academic results. I'm guilty of being positively discriminated because of it. Does having good results mean that they can teach well? No, of course not. But most people think so. Perhaps lacking any other way of selecting good tutors, parents go for the overall packaging, much like people will buy a brand of salt because it looks more attractive. Academically good tutors, naturally self-motivated, might not have a way of dealing with unmotivated students because they might find it hard to understand why a student isn't motivated.

Can I offer a better way to select tutors? Yes.

Look for those who failed miserably and managed to stand up and high and tall in the academic world. Look for those whom teachers branded as failures yet return to the teaching force to save more students. Look for those nameless applicants who wanted to go into MOE to teach but their results are not good enough to even be called up for interview. If they don't mind their poor grades, why should MOE mind?

In the end, all I've mentioned here will still not be followed. That's why I still have a job.