Which country is this about? "We argue that the prevalent private tutoring is a market response to the government's rigid and uniform education policy".
Is it Britain? Certainly in Britain, private tutoring is now 'prevalent'. It is used by parents of children at all sorts of schools - perhaps most frequently of all by ambitious, well-off parents who send their children to what they hope are the best government schools but who realise that the education their children are getting - while wonderfully cheap (free) - is not always so very good. So they pay for tutors to try to get their children into better universities.
It is easy to think of an example of this: Mr and Mrs Blair hired tutors for their children. Not any old tutors for them but tutors from Westminster, one of the best private schools in Britain. So in this country, the Prime Minister, while ostensibly a great believer in state education, has found it inadequate and paid for private education on the side.
But Britain is not the country in question. The government of the country does its best to squash private education. But...
"Unsatisfied demand for education by parents and students in a highly regulated educational environment has resulted in an enormous increase in private tutoring despite government's strong policy measures to reduce it."
It is a fascinating example of private education flourishing in face of government opposition. The government tries to ban it but the people, finding state education so inadequate (like Mr Blair) go for it anyway.
This is a link to an academic paper on the subject which refers, incidentally, to private education in other countries around the world. In the narrow debate in Britain, people often assume that Britain is unique and strange in having private education. Actually private education occurs all around the world and for the obvious reason. State education tends not to be good enough. In some places - in certain schools in America, for example - government education is morally and physically dangerous.
Posted by James Bartholomew • Indexed in Education
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My father has personal-tutored (to make a verb of it) for years and has never been underemployed.
Interestingly, about half his students are the children of Indian immigrants.
Posted by: PL at November 23, 2006 09:42 AM
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I always remember when I was at a discussion about public services policy, the spokesperson on education made the point that state education is "only the default option". He went on that it may not feel that way now, so widespread is it, but the law says otherwise - that it is not the government's job to educate children, but parents' jobs to ensure their children are educated and they can choose however they want to do that. But by providing such widespread default provision of state schools nobody is left with any great incentive to look at alternatives (private, home-schooling etc).
So, one question - how do we enforce the law (ie that parents must ensure their children are educated) without necessarily providing them the means on the state to do so? There must be dozens of other examples of where such an arrangement obtains.
Posted by: Jock Coats at November 22, 2006 06:41 PM