Top private tutors raking in big bucks (by Radha Basu, Senior Correspondent )

The following report is from the Sunday Times dated 26 September 2010.

Many in tuition- hungry Singapore say that incomes are up by at least 30%

By Radha Basu, Senior Correspondent

When Ms Janice Chuah first started her private tuition classes in January last year, she had only five pupils.

She earned $1,000 a month.

Her pupil base has since grown tenfold - and she now earns up to $15,000 a month teaching maths to primary school pupils.

Ms Chuah, 36, who has won several awards from the Ministry of Education, had quit teaching in a primary school to become a private tutor. She wanted to spend more time with her three young boys, aged between three and nine.

She now puts in half her previous 40-hour work week while earning more than double her previous salary.

When she quit her job, she was prepared to give up a paid employee's perks like bonuses, medical benefits and annual leave.

'I was willing to initially sacrifice income for more flexibility,' she said. 'I've been lucky to marry work with passion, have flexible hours, and earn a respectable income.'

She has since also registered her own private education centre, employing five tutors. She hopes to list the company on the stock exchange some day. 'The sky is the limit for me,' she said, beaming.

Indeed, with parents in Singapore spending $820 million on private tuition in 2008 - nearly double that a decade earlier - private tutors, especially those in the top league, are raking in big bucks.

Half a dozen well-established tutors The Sunday Times spoke to have all seen incomes rise by at least 30 per cent over the past couple of years.

It is a business that seems to be recession-proof, with some tutors earning upwards of $1 million a year, said Mr Tong Yee, a former junior college teacher.

Mr Tong is one of the founders of School of Thought, an education consultancy that provides affordable tuition and which also aims to see private tuition done away with, as schools improve on their teaching methods.

'I reckon there are at least 10 top tutors who earn upwards of $1 million a year,' he said. He estimates that there could be another 25 earning more than $200,000.

An economics tutor he knows, for instance, coaches 70 students during each weekly session. With six such sessions, he has at least 420 students. This person, Mr Tong said, earns around $55,000 a month.

Such tutors rarely have to advertise; students mostly hear about them by word of mouth.
The Sunday Times understands that this discreet method - in which they typically get paid in cash - also means they are not on the taxman's radar.

But one super tutor who is not shy about his income is Mr Phang Yu Hon, 43, who teaches physics to upper secondary and junior college students.

Mr Phang, a former Mindef research engineer with a first-class honours degree in electrical engineering from the National University of Singapore, earned more than $522,000 after expenses last year - or more than $40,000 a month.

He declared all this and paid $85,000 in taxes. This year, he expects to earn between $600,000 and $700,000.

When he began giving tuition full-time in 1997, he earned less than $10,000 in his first year. 'It was a big pay cut and people thought I was wasting my education,' Mr Phang said. 'But I liked to teach and wanted to control my own destiny.'

From just eight students at the end of 1997, he now has 200. Fees for secondary school students start at $320 a month; those in junior college pay $340 upwards.

Ms Celine Loi's business is another success story. The maths tutor's income has doubled since she was featured in a Sunday Times piece on super tutors in 2008.

The NUS maths graduate declined to say exactly how much she earns, but her takings have increased by a 'six-digit' figure in recent years.

Ms Loi, 35, claims that she is able to help weak students attain good grades in maths. She has around 160 students currently and another 40 on a wait list.

Mr Kelvin Ong, meanwhile, has carved out a niche - in tutoring children who want, or whose parents want them, to get into the Gifted Education Programme.

Mr Ong, 35, runs his own academic enrichment company AristoCare.

He takes in only 10 pupils every year, works just 32 hours a week, but earns 30 per cent more than what he did as a gifted education teacher at a well-known boys' school.

But he is quick to advise aspiring tutors that not everyone makes it to the top league, that they should consider the high stakes and 'big stresses' involved.

'There are no bonuses,' he said.

'Unlike the schools, you can lose all your students if you don't deliver good results,' he added.
Indeed, the vast majority of tutors here are unlikely to earn anywhere near six figures.

It is difficult to assess median incomes of private tutors, given the unregulated nature of the business. But at some private tuition centres, the pay for full-time tutors starts at $1,800 a month.

Untested tutors aiming for the top league have to prove themselves first, especially as appraisals in many tuition centres are linked to how students perform.

And many home tutors are dropped the moment students don't perform.

Ms Chuah said there is a 'preconceived notion' that tutoring is easy work.

'To be a good teacher, I need to make the effort to understand what and why my students don't understand. I must have the patience to explain to them until they do, even for the zillionth time,' she said. 'And that's not easy at all.'

Demand (of private tuition) raises questions about effectiveness of remedials

The following is from ST Forum of the STraits Times dated 19 August 2010

ST Forum

Aug 19, 2010
Demand raises questions about effectiveness of remedials

IN RECENT years, there has been a growing emphasis on work-life balance. This is much welcome, but efforts seem targeted at working adults.

I think we have overlooked the same need for our young.

Our children not only attend school, but they must also stay back for project work, a host of activities other than co-curricular programmes and, on top of these, remedial classes.

Students, especially those in upper secondary, stay back as late as 5pm or 6pm for compulsory remedial classes for different subjects on different days of the week. And when they finally get home, many have to rush through dinner as they probably still have homework to complete, tests to revise for and maybe projects to work on.

Besides, much as some people would like to deny it, private tuition is almost a necessity nowadays.

This insatiable need for tuition should set school managements thinking: Are the remedial programmes effective?

We need to make time for students to wind down, recharge, reflect and relax. They need time for family and friends.

We cannot have a system in which academic excellence always prevails.

For the many students who are of average calibre, this kills passion for learning anything at all, not to mention the adverse effects on their self-esteem, and relationships with friends and family.

I hope the Education Ministry and Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports will study the issue and craft policies and programmes that complement one another. This can be done by having the needs of our young in mind.

Constance Lee (Ms)

Tuition industry lacks regulation

The following is from the ST Forum of the Starits Times dated 19 August 2010.

Aug 19, 2010
CONSUMERS UNPROTECTED

Tuition industry lacks regulation

WAS surprised and relieved to see the article on Sunday ('Is your child's tutor qualified?').
I am the chief executive officer of the Australian Tutoring Association (ATA) and last year, while in Singapore, I met two large tuition companies here to speak about issues that the tuition industry could address.

These issues included:
· Tutor qualifications;
· Child protection;
· Truth in advertising; and
· Consumer protection.

Both businesses expressed interest in forming an association similar to the ATA. However, neither has acted despite both recognising serious issues in the industry.

In Australia, the ATA has given consumers a choice between those places offering accountable, honest and open tuition, and those that do not.

We do this by having members agree to abide by our code of conduct, which is available online to consumers and to which all members are accountable.

Why isn't there a tuition association in Singapore which benchmarks minimum standards for all tutors?

Why is the industry unregulated?

Who is most vulnerable?

A responsible industry has a representative body. It seems odd that in Singapore, where there is a real focus on education, the private sector is not called upon to demonstrate more initiative with regard to consumers.

The worst aspects of the sector in Australia are similar to those that occur here: Online tuition and the use of agents (in the case of tuition agencies that are not registered with the Ministry of Education).

I think serious questions should be asked about the tuition sector in Singapore, and all related businesses should be subject to greater consumer scrutiny until there is a representative body that is prepared to publicly call for minimum standards and work with the Government as well as consumer protection and educational bodies.

Mohan Dhall

Is your child's tutor qualified?

The following was a report in the Sunday Times dated 15 august 2010.
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Aug 15, 2010

Is your child's tutor qualified?

Many parents rely mostly on word-of-mouth referrals when hiring tutors
By Lin Wenjian, Relatively Speaking


When the English language tutor Mrs Lynn Woo hired told her daughter to 'ownself do' a question in an assessment paper, the concerned mother who overheard the Singlish phrase decided to sack the tutor.

Never mind that it was only the first lesson.

Mrs Woo, 35, an insurance specialist, says: 'I spoke to her only briefly on the phone before I agreed to hire her. It was when she was here in my home that I heard her talking to my daughter in broken English. So I terminated her services immediately after the first lesson.'

The incident happened last year. Mrs Woo paid the tutor the $30 fee for the one-hour lesson through her colleague who 'knows her and highly recommended her', but not before 'I chided my colleague for recommending someone like that'.

Mrs Woo's daughter, now in Primary Four, is currently taking English lessons from another tutor - also a recommendation, this time by a cousin.

She says: 'I was more careful this time. I asked my nephew, who had been taught by the tutor for about two years, about her teaching style and confirmed her qualifications and experience over the phone before I agreed to hire her.

'And during the first lesson, I observed the way she taught my girl.'

Tuition is a minefield for parents because it is a big-money industry that is largely unregulated.

According to the latest data from the Singapore Department of Statistics, there are 495 Ministry of Education-registered tuition centres here in 2008 - up from 387 in 2004 - with total operating receipts of $137.1 million.

These figures exclude fees paid to private individual tutors and tuition agencies which find freelance tutors for students. Private tutors and agencies need not register with the ministry, which means there are many unknowns when it comes to hiring them, the chief ones being the veracity of their qualifications, their ability to teach as well as their moral character.

Hence, parents have to take on the responsibility of checking the quality of extra academic help they get their children.

If parents are slack in checking the tutors they hire, not only might their children not improve in their studies, they might even be abused.

Madam Sally Lam found out that her son was pinched by the tutor hired to teach the eight-year-old and his twin sister.

'My son complained that he was pinched on the cheeks a few times because he was playful. But he is only eight years old, how do you expect him to behave all the time?' says the 40-year-old homemaker, who has another son, aged 12.

There was another reason she sacked the tutor just six months after he started work on the recommendation of the twins' previous tutor.

'My children's grades didn't improve after one semester and he struggled with the mathematics problems my elder son asked about, so I don't think he is very good even though he is a university graduate and even brought his certificates to show me on the first day,' she says.

Although some parents verify the credentials and qualifications of prospective tutors, most still rely on word-of-mouth recommendations from people they know.

'A degree and tutoring experience are good, but I am more concerned about whether they can get along with my sons and if they have the ability to communicate effectively,' says Mrs Patricia Chua, whose two sons, Keith, 14, and Warren, 12, have had tuition since they were in Primary One.

She got more than she bargained for with one tutor - she got along too well with Warren and talked to the boy more than taught him.

'When Warren was in Primary Three, his English and science tutor spent most of the time chatting with him in the room during lessons, and we also did not see improvements in his results,' says Mrs Chua, who replaced the tutor with the boy's current one after one year.

Private tutors whom LifeStyle spoke to agree that with the industry still largely unregulated, there are bound to be some black sheep among them.

Mr Ronald Wee, 50, who runs his own distributing business, has been tutoring primary and secondary school students in mathematics and science on weekends for five years. He says he knows of 'some private tutors who will not accept students with poor grades for fear that it might affect their reputation if these students show no improvement or continue to fail after taking tuition from them'.

Some tutors lie about their experience.

Events manager Jerrine Lim, 28, who gives tuition part-time, says: 'I've seen some tutors claim to have full-time teaching experience when they have done only some relief teaching in schools.'

While private tutors acknowledge that the bulk of their business comes from referrals, they insist some forms of checks are necessary for parents to have peace of mind.

Full-time tutor Ryan D'Souza, 36, believes that 'qualifications definitely matter for the subjects I teach'.

A tutor for the past 10 years, he teaches mathematics, chemistry and physics to students from primary school to junior college.

'A bachelor's degree is an essential requirement to teach upper secondary and JC students,' adds Mr D'Souza, who has a degree in mathematics, physics and computer science awarded by an overseas university.

Beyond the checking of qualifications, another full-time tutor Angel Ngoh, 34, usually proposes 'a paid trial lesson' to parents of potential new students.

'I'll encourage them to sit in during the trial lesson and they are free to observe how I conduct lessons,' says Ms Ngoh, who specialises in teaching primary- and secondary-level mathematics and science subjects.

Tuition centres are another option for parents who want to be sure their children are getting the help they need. The organisations that LifeStyle contacted say they put prospective tutors through a few rounds of screening and interviews before hiring them.

Mr Dennis Ng, director of Kent Ridge Tutors, which has 11 centres islandwide, says the company 'imposes very strict criteria on the selection of our tutors'.

Among other things, new tutors must be graduates who have taught in a government school for at least three years.
They must also possess the X factor. Mr Ng says: 'Our tutors don't just teach. They must also be able to build rapport with our students and their parents.'

Over at Potter's Clay Education Centre in Marine Parade, chief executive and principal Darren Chua has implemented a 'demo-teaching' class for all prospective hires since the centre opened in July last year.

'The candidates are assessed on three key areas: knowledge, delivery and presentation, and rapport with students,' says Dr Chua, who adds that his centre may contact potential tutors' previous employers for character references.

Tuition centres keep up the checks even after the tutors are hired. Mrs Rosabel Teo, 39, centre director of Kip McGrath Tampines North Centre, will routinely check the lesson plans prepared by her team of five tutors. Once a month, she will also sit in and co-teach a class 'to ensure the consistency of the tutors'.

'The students, especially those in secondary schools, are also good judges of a tutor's ability and can give me feedback immediately,' she says.

These measures tuition centres have taken seem to be working. According to the Consumers Association of Singapore, there were just 15 cases of complaint against tuition centres and tutors last year, down from 27 in 2008.

While that is good news to parents looking for tutors, the best advice they could heed might be Ms Ngoh's.

She says: 'A suitable tutor is one who is able to accompany the students on their learning journey and to motivate them to learn independently.'

To find those tutors, there is no shortcut but for parents to talk to their children.