What is a Tutoring Center?

What is a Tutoring Center?

A tutoring center is a special learning place that is considered a non-formal school. They are typically used to train students to strengthen specific subjects, such as English and Mathematics, in preparation for certain examinations. Some tutoring centers are designed for students retaking university entrance exams, offering a full year of courses to help students prepare for the next year's exams, where students may spend 18 hours (1 day) in the tutoring center to study and prepare for the retake.

Academically, tutoring is also known as shadow education. According to Bray, M. (1999), extracurricular tutoring only exists when mainstream education exists, and its scale and form vary with changes in mainstream education. It receives less attention than mainstream education in almost all societies, and its appearance is far less clear than that of mainstream education. In mainstream school curricula, subjects that most increase opportunities for further education and employment, such as language, mathematics, and science, are also the most popular courses in tutoring.

Tutoring centers are usually private and are very popular in some East Asian regions, such as Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, mainland China, South Korea, and Singapore, influenced by Confucian thought and historical private schools, imperial examinations, and the eight-legged essay system; in fact, in these places, tutoring centers almost constitute an education system, with many students attending tutoring centers after school. For example, in South Korea, household tutoring expenditures as a percentage of GDP increased from 1.2% in 1990 to 1.8% in 1994, and up to 2.9% in 1998.

Arguments Supporting Tutoring

• Shadow education is a natural tendency for responsible parents to support their children's education because it allows students to receive further enhancement, guidance, and preparation for exams.
• When policies declare parental investment in education illegal, the results can be disastrous. In the 1960s and 70s, Tanzania banned private secondary education for reasons of equity, leading to stagnation in the scale and quality of government public schools, resulting in students all fairly entering very poor public schools. This led thousands of parents to send their children to neighboring countries in search of better educational opportunities. After a new government came to power, various forms of private education were legalized, expanding educational opportunities and reducing the proportion of students seeking education opportunities in neighboring countries, while also improving the quality of public and private education.
• Education is a human right.
• Investment in education is an investment in human capital.
• Investment by families in education is a natural outcome of social capital. Social capital is closely related to social welfare, and the ability of society to enable families to invest in private education should be viewed as a positive rather than a problem.
• Tutoring can provide diversified education and help some students with weaker concentration to understand and enjoy school courses. For various reasons, a school cannot possibly have top-notch teachers for all subjects and cannot have all students performing above average, while effective tutoring can enhance students' confidence in competing with others.

Arguments Against Tutoring

• The existence of tutoring centers is controversial in some countries. Regarding learning methods, some believe that tutoring merely forces students to absorb large amounts of information without giving them the opportunity to think and analyze. However, others argue that the loss of independent thinking and analysis opportunities for students is a result of the country's examination system and competitive environment, and that the existence of tutoring is a necessary evil.
• In terms of teaching and learning, tutoring may create a vicious cycle, causing students to lose interest in learning at school. They may have already learned the knowledge and skills to cope with exams in advance and become weary of the teaching style of school teachers, believing that the teaching quality in tutoring centers is higher. This phenomenon may lead to teachers becoming more lax in their lesson preparation and teaching attitudes.
• Many school teachers believe that tutoring centers focus on problem-solving techniques, lacking a comprehensive teaching of concepts and reasoning. However, many students disagree, as tutoring centers, due to the pressure of survival, ensure that teachers clearly explain concepts and, due to the significantly fewer hours of class time per week compared to school, tutoring teachers strive to explain concepts clearly, concisely, and understandably.
• Regarding educational equality, tutoring exacerbates the severe differences in student learning abilities, as not all students attend tutoring centers. Tutoring leads to polarization of student abilities, widening the gap in academic performance, making it difficult for teachers to select appropriate materials for teaching.

Private Tutoring

Generally, countries and regions only regulate tutoring centers and rarely intervene in private tutoring (i.e., tutoring by a tutor). However, in South Korea, all private tutors must register with local education and tax authorities, or they can face one year in prison and fines. On February 19, 2008, the South Korean National Assembly's Education Committee passed a bill raising the fine for illegal education from 1 million won to 5 million won (approximately NT$128,000).

School Teachers Offering Tutoring

In Taiwan, public school teachers are prohibited from working part-time outside of school; however, in reality, some teachers still run tutoring sessions or work part-time at large tutoring centers. If such phenomena are reported and verified, the education bureau will send personnel to catch the violating teachers, who will be barred from teaching in schools. This phenomenon has been described in the works of writer Kuo Ling, as well as in the novel "Dangerous Minds" by writer Hou Wenyong.

Most junior high school students take tutoring to prepare for basic academic assessments, high school students for university entrance exams and specified subject tests, and university students to prepare for graduate school admission. In 2005, due to the Ministry of Education's intention to revert to a system of transitioning from elementary to junior high schools with intelligence testing, parents and students panicked, leading to a record high in teachers offering tutoring outside of school. In the book "Dangerous Minds," it is mentioned that junior high school student Hsieh Cheng-chieh was dissatisfied with Taiwan's entrance examination system and raised objections to the educational methods of tutor Teacher Chan, leading to a series of crises when the teacher's tutoring activities outside of school were exposed.

In addition to the prevalence of tutoring centers for junior high to high school and high school to university transitions, Taiwan also sees the emergence of tutoring centers for standardized tests (high vocational to university), graduate schools (master’s and doctoral programs), civil service exams (national exams), professional licenses, TOEFL, GRE (study abroad and language proficiency tests), and more on the streets of Taiwan. By July 5, 2013, there were a total of 18,940 tutoring centers.

Legal Advertising Methods

Tutoring centers in Taiwan have only two legal advertising methods:

1. Setting up signs and advertisements at their business locations.
2. Spending money on bus body ads, bus stop ads, MRT train carriage ads, building exterior ads, newspaper ads, television ads, telephone ads, and printed ads.

Controversies

• Some tutoring centers may purchase lists of high exam passers from illegal sources (including names, ID numbers, graduated schools, phone numbers, etc.) and pretend that the individuals on the list are their students to create a false impression. This method is considered misleading advertising.
• Some tutoring centers may purchase examination papers from various schools illegally, and these papers are usually not allowed to be leaked. This is also a malicious competitive behavior that exploits legal loopholes.
• During the 2003 Unified Entrance Examination for Technical Colleges and Vocational Schools, a tutoring center in Taichung arranged for a student posing as a test-taker to "steal" exam papers (sitting in their seat, waiting until the exam starts, grabbing the exam paper, running out of the exam room, and handing the paper to the tutoring center for solving). When the then Minister of Education, Huang Rongcun, learned of this, he was furious and stated that the enrollment methods of tutoring centers had become increasingly outrageous and must be dealt with severely according to the law.
• During the 2010 Unified Entrance Examination for Technical Colleges and Vocational Schools, Li Qingyun, the person in charge of the Beiyi Tutoring Center in Taichung, bribed computer personnel at the examination center, Dong Shangde, to alter the scores of students from his tutoring center, making them the top performers that year. The Kaohsiung District Prosecutor's Office has detained both individuals and questioned nine students suspected of cheating, five of whom have admitted to cheating.
• In recent years, due to the high profits from operating tutoring centers, there are signs of violent and underworld forces intervening in the tutoring industry, such as the violent destruction case of "Lixing University Tutoring Center" in Douliu City, Yunlin County.

On-Campus Enhancement Classes

In Taiwan, junior high schools, in order to increase their graduation rates, often have principals and academic affairs directors illegally conduct enhancement classes. In some private schools, they will also offer specialized classes.

Forms

Many students enter tutoring centers because they cannot keep up with the pace or want to get ahead of school. The mainstream tutoring centers for high school to university transitions often have classes with hundreds of students, advertised by well-known tutoring instructors. However, there are also a few small tutoring centers that promote small class sizes. Each class lasts about 2 to 4 hours, usually starting after school during weekdays. Additionally, during holidays, tutoring centers also offer short-term courses on content that is generally not taught in textbooks (such as past curriculums and knowledge required for senior year university entrance exams).

Since 2006, some operators have transformed physical tutoring centers into online (mobile) tutoring, allowing students to watch tutoring courses online, promoting mobile learning, which has been widely accepted by the public as of 2012. Various courses are provided online, including high school entrance examinations, university transfers, graduate schools (master's programs for working professionals), civil service exams (national exams), licenses, TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication), and more.

Tutoring Centers in Hong Kong

Hong Kong has many tutoring centers that provide teaching and practice outside of regular classroom learning. These tutoring centers are mainly designed to prepare for public exams, which are regarded as "make-or-break" tests, such as the Hong Kong Certificate of Education Examination, Hong Kong Advanced Level Examination, and the newly introduced Hong Kong Diploma of Secondary Education. The courses are primarily taught in an exam-oriented manner, providing examination answering techniques and revisiting content not taught in school, filling in the gaps of school education, while also providing past exam papers for students to practice. Some tutoring instructors even predict the questions for public exams (commonly known as "tips"), allowing students to focus their revision on key topics. If they successfully predict questions, they will heavily promote their ability to provide tips. These tutoring courses are quite popular among secondary school students. Many well-known tutoring instructors spend large sums of money on advertisements, such as bus body ads and building exterior wall banners, while boasting about the number of students who achieved the highest grades in public exams.

According to statistics from the Hong Kong Census and Statistics Department, in the 2004/05 school year, over 30% of primary to high school students had received tutoring, and nearly 50% in pre-university programs. Students who receive tutoring spend an average of over HK$800. According to a survey by the Hong Kong Federation of Youth Groups in 2009, the overall ratio of secondary and primary school students receiving tutoring increased to 50%.

In 2011, one large tutoring center, Modern Education, even had the capacity to go public on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.

Tutoring Centers in Mainland China

In Mainland China, public school teachers, as long as they have teaching experience and a certain number of years of service, usually have experience setting up tutoring centers outside of school for extra income. Due to the intense pressure on Chinese middle school students regarding their further education (junior high students must take the unified admission exam for regular senior high schools, while senior high students must take the unified admission exam for regular universities), most middle school students and their parents are willing to find experienced teachers for tutoring after school. As a result, the phenomenon of weekend or holiday tutoring is very common in Mainland China.

Both public and private schools in China frequently open tutoring centers for their students, typically during weekends or national holidays, aiming to increase the school's enrollment rate. Many schools incorporate tutoring into their daily teaching (meaning that not attending tutoring could be considered skipping class), thereby managing the teaching schedule. This leads to a situation where even if tutoring classes are "voluntary," students who do not attend will be seriously lagging behind or missing out on the teaching progress. This is not permissible under relevant laws. Some schools have even adopted the method of establishing shell companies (where the founders usually call them amateur schools) to turn the entire school into a private enterprise, thus circumventing inspections by relevant authorities. The lack of a reporting system for educational complaints has also contributed to the prevalence of illegal tutoring centers. There have been students who described the awkwardness of reporting tutoring to the Shanghai Education Department: "I called to report in the morning, but they hadn't started work yet. I called at noon and they were having lunch. I called after school and they had already left work. Emailing a report was like throwing a stone into the ocean." However, the situation of schools organizing tutoring for students has attracted attention from some local governments. For example, the Jiangsu Provincial Department of Education has issued "Five Strict Regulations" to prohibit schools from conducting tutoring and to accept public complaints in order to reduce student pressure and promote quality education.

Tutoring Centers in Japan

Tutoring centers in Japan are called "gakushujuku" (学習塾) or "yobikō" (予備校).

• The content above is excerpted from Wikipedia

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