Daily Lessons from Life 17 September 2013 - Government may study impact of tuition on grades

"Government may study impact of tuition on grades - My Paper Sep 17, 2013 SINGAPORE - The Ministry of Education may study the impact of private tuition on educational attainment here. This is according to Ms Indranee Rajah, Senior Minister of State for Education, yesterday.She was replying to queries raised in Parliament by Nominated Member of Parliament Janice Koh, who highlighted that "little data is available" on the tuition industry and its impact on children here. The most recent data by the Department of Statistics showed that Singapore households spent around $820 million on tuition in 2008. This was an increase from $470 million a decade earlier. Ms Indranee said a study on the matter "is something that we can certainly keep an eye out for". On concern that students from low-income families might be unable to afford tuition, she said a social-mobility problem would exist if the only way students could pass an examination was if they had tuition. But this was not the case, she said. She added that the Government recognises that there are students who do not do as well as others and need support. So, there are levelling-up programmes in schools that could help them. There was also concern over good teachers leaving for the booming tuition industry. Ms Indranee said the tuition industry had not made "any significant impact" on the attrition of teachers, noting a low 3 per cent annual resignation rate. She added that, based on exit interviews and surveys, joining the tuition industry was not cited as a major reason for teachers leaving the education service." Kudos to NMP Janice Koh for bringing the question of 'tuition's effect on grades'. The SMOS Indranee's response was a bit of a disappointment really. As policy makers, there is a need to consider questions that are of a long term (4-5 years) nature proactively instead of relying on the back-benchers to raise the need. Lessons for me are: 1. the cannot be a world best educational system IF the parents are SPENDING or investing SO MUCH money on tuition classes. SMOS Indranee touched on those who may be struggling academically without private tuition and may have left out those who want to better their grades through 'un-affordable' private tuition. Until we have a handle on how many students are on tuition, from what background, what were their grades like before and after tuition, etc, there is really no solid basis to conclude this or that about the effect of tuition on the students' academic performance; 2. other questions to consider are: how much money are the government investing in 'education' - minus the infrastructure bit vs. how much the private tuition providers are making in profit? what is the $/time spent of a MOE teacher vs. the private tuition teacher? how many students on private tuition are from what income level household? etc for us to PROPERLY assess the impact of private tuition on the students and their families!; 3. since only such a small % of MOE teachers left for the private tuition industry, why do the private tuition industry attracts so many tutors? is it the money or the flexible time or what? If the private tuition is so effective in raising the students' academic performance, what can the MOE educators learn from the private tuition industry? SMOS Indranee and colleagues, please DO look into private tuition industry and NOT as a 'something we can certainly keep an eye out on'!! p/s: Recently NUS and NTU and other Singapore universities were ranked higher than ever before in Asia. The questions I asked were: 1. how does it square with the recent controversial debate raised by some foreign employers in Singapore who questioned the quality of Singapore's universities' graduates?; and 2. if Singapore's educational system is world class, how come we are not producing the type of talent the employers want and need?; and 3. why can't we produce talents that are keenly aware that: 'money is not the mainly driver for one to serve the nation'?