Private tutoring on the rise in many countries

Private tutoring is on the rise in many countries and helping students improve academically, a recent paper by the World Bank Research Development Group reports.

Substantial private tutoring industries could be found in countries as diverse economically and geographically as Romania, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Taiwan, Singapore, Japan, Cambodia, the United States and the United Kingdom, the report’s authors found.

In nearly all these countries between 25 and 90 percent of students at certain levels of education were taking private tutoring.

The rise of private tutoring was most prevalent in East Asian countries, where Japan had pioneered the industry, with nine private tutoring schools listed on the stock exchange and annual revenues reaching US$14 billion by the mid-1990s. The tutoring sector was “a crucial component of Japanese education”.

Tutoring was found to increase test scores in India and the United States, mean matriculation rates in Israel and student academic performance in Vietnam (where 34 percent of households send their children to private tutoring).

In low- and high-income countries, some households had reportedly begun sending their children to private tutoring to give them an edge as early as preschool.

The report found that the tutoring sector – sometimes referred to as “shadow education” – had strongly positive returns as a complement to formal public-school education.

Private tutoring had supplemented the public sector rather than replacing it. The combination of public schooling and private supplementary tutoring was more affordable for many households than private education would have been..

The full World Bank report is at this web page.

An Education Forum Hot Topic on the tutoring industry is at this web page.