“Singapore-style” tuition classes a hit in Hong Kong
Move over, Tiger Balm, Tiger Beer, TWG, electronic equipment and petrochemical products. Singapore-style tuition might turn out to be our next biggest export.
An article in The New Paper (TNP) published on January 11 2016 reveals that Hong Kong students are spending their after-school hours at tuition centres specialising in “Singapore-style” education as the new academic year kicks off.
It’s not just “Singapore-style” tuition that is popular. Singapore exam papers are popular too.
Like many other Asian cities (think Singapore, Taiwan and Seoul), tuition is big in Hong Kong with many parents scrambling to take extreme measures to ensure that their children get a head start by getting into good schools. According to a quote from a Hong Kong parent in TNP article, she said that parents in Hong Kong can attend up to 14 school interviews just for the primary school level. With that level of competition, it is no surprise that parents will pull out all the stops to get their children into the schools they want.
And it is not just Singapore-style tuition that is popular with parents in Hong Kong. Singapore primary school exam papers (yes, the ones you see sold in bundles at some discrete shop corners at the neighbourhood centres) are also extremely popular with HK parents. An article published on AsiaOne on January 7 2015 reported that HK parents eager to give their children a leg-up in their studies snapped up Singapore exam papers from brand-name primary schools in Singapore. While copies of exam papers for English and Chinese and Mathematics were sold to HK parents, English and Mathematic papers were more popular.
What’s the appeal of Singapore-style tuition and Singapore school exam papers?
There are many factors behind the appeal of a Singapore-style education for HK parents. Firstly, the two countries’ school programmes are similar – Hong Kong’s primary school education is between 6 to 11 years old while Singapore’s primary school education is between 7 to 12 years old.
Secondly, HK parents find a lot of value exposing their children to Singapore exam papers because the Mathematics instructions in both cities are similar and the standard of the English exam papers are higher than that of the English papers in Hong Kong schools. By exposing their children to Singapore English and Mathematics exam school papers, HK parents believe that their children’s knowledge in Mathematics can be reinforced and their children’s English abilities can be stretched.
Third, Singapore students have always performed very well in the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) and Singapore universities have been ranked very highly globally. Coupled with the use of English as the main language of instruction and the focus developing students who are bilingual, these have help create recognition and a strong ‘brand-name’ for Singapore-style education.
Singapore-style tuition classes: what is of value?
Before you turn your nose and scoff at the ‘kiasu’ culture that tuition perpetuates and the stress piled on children and youths, let’s take a more objective look at the tuition industry in Singapore.
On one hand there seems to be more negative impressions than positive ones about the tuition industry in Singapore with a reported 1 billion dollars spent on tuition a year, features of super-tutors, reports on how much certain tutors earn, etc. All these seem to suggest that private tuition is just a profit-making industry preying on the insecurities of parents and leeching on parents’ hard-earned money, stories of tutors not possessing teaching experience or even proper qualifications.
On the other hand however, there are increasingly many quality tutors who have left the service to become tutors because they were burnt out from the stress of being stretched too many ways and had too little time to do what they wanted to do most – teaching. Put simply, these ex-teachers-turned-tutors and the good tutors went into the industry because they still want to guide students to realize their full potential. There are also many dedicated private tutors who are passionate about teaching, are very good at what they do and genuinely care about the well-being of their students. Some of these tutors actually go on to set up more ‘holistic’ tuition centres where students do more than just zip in and out of the centre for classes. They pop in at the centre to do their work, revise, have discussions with their peers and build strong social and support networks with their peers and tutors.
The tuition-industry is not all negative. Parents just need to be very discerning about the tutors and the tuition centres they choose. When parents are searching for the right tuition classes for their children, they need to find out what is being done in the tuition classes to add value to their children’s learning experience. To sound out if a tutor or a tuition class is suitable for their children; parents should speak with the tutors or perhaps even request a sit-in for part of the class. The class size should be small so that students receive adequate attention. The tutor should be able to do a lot more than just asking them to do their work on the spot and ask the students to ask questions if they have any.
A good tutor should be able to analyze the curriculum, repackage it to fit the learning styles of the students in his class, deliver lessons with enthusiasm, create appropriate resources to test for understanding, provide feedback to students and be willing to revisit certain topics if he finds that students still do not grasp the concepts. That, would be a “Singapore-style” tuition we can truly be proud to share.
LearnOwly is a Singapore-based platform which helps parents find that perfect tutor. Designed by a team passionate about the education industry,LearnOwly allows both parents and tutors to make an informed decision before jumping into the tuition sessions.
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