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The private academic support marketplace has grown in popularity during the past few decades. In the United Kingdom alone, it is £6 billion industry with a lot of potentials to grow in the future.
Wow, those are big bucks!
During the past 12 months, the demand for online tutoring in the UK has grown 500%! Parents want private tuition for there children. Many mothers and fathers have found private tutors through online search engines. Academic success is every parent's dream and it can be attained through supplemental instruction from online private educators.
According to the Sutton Trust, 1 in 4 students, in the UK, use the services of a private tutor with 40% of them being based in London. It is clear that a lot of parents share the fear of their child dropping out of secondary school, considering the average cost per hour of hiring a tutor being quite high at £22.
A survey conducted by Tutor House found that parents are willing to pay up to £36 an hour for private tuition.
Taking private tutoring lessons from a kindergarten level often shows that the academic results of the child are insufficient compared to the ambition of the parents.
Reviewing your lessons with a private academic advisor will help your child aim for excellence in the future at a prestigious university, get high results on the A-Level exams and avoid school dropout and repetition.
Are the academic trends the same in every continent or country? Of course not!
Superprof provides an in-depth comparative analysis of differences in private educational support around the world according to the different cultures and languages.
Extra School Support in Anglo-Saxon and Latin Countries
Remedial school support varies from one culture to another, and the demand for individual private instructors changes from one country to country. In France, over 36% of students have sought the help of a personal educator from kindergarten to secondary school.
These figures are higher in some European countries while elsewhere, in Anglo-Saxon for example, they may be lower.
Private tutoring is not homogeneous across Europe, what is the explication of this?
The answer is simple: the economic and social fabric of each country is different and also the importance of private tutoring changes from one culture to another.
Remedial Teaching in the Anglo-Saxon Countries
In Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian countries, home tutoring is a marginal phenomenon. Giving homework help to students is thought to be part of the services offered by the National Education System in the country concerned.
Thus, there is a correlation between the quality of the school system and the volume of tutoring sessions: the more disappointing the school system, the more private tutoring sessions are required.
While in France and other European countries, obtaining a qualified and well-paid job position remains conditional on the possession of a high academic degree received from higher education, Anglo-Saxon countries do not meet this principle.
In the United Kingdom (and in Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States of America) hiring is based more on the motivation and experience than on the school teacher's academic background.
The premature exit from the school system or dropping out, which is common in secondary school, is less experienced because the fear of unemployment is less significant than in countries like Greece, Italy, Spain and France where the economies are not as good.
This explains why looking for private tutors UK online and in the newspaper for primary and secondary school students is sometimes difficult: even with a professional degree, you can always "get up" and find some kind of work in an Anglo-Saxon country.
On the other hand, giving remedial classes to those with academic difficulties is something that has every reason to exist in the United States, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the United Kingdom because universities are so competitive and expensive.
For example, a semester at the University of Sydney costs around $16,000 (Aussie Dollars or £9,000)...
That's why at home or online tutoring and intensive internships are in high demand to ensure success at a university level.
In Scandinavia, PISA survey champions, students benefit from individualized tutoring at school.
In Finland, Norway and Denmark, repeating a year and private tutoring are non-existent because teachers work with pairs and offer the academic support needed to succeed.
This has the effect of students receiving the extra school they need without parents having to hire a private academic tutor to teach their children at home during the evening.
Find out about private tutoring in North America.
Personal Academic Tutoring in Latin-based and Southern European Countries
In the south of the "old continent", the reality is not as pleasant in terms of potential jobs: unemployment rates (according to the OECD) in Latin countries and Greece are very high (from 10% to 25% of the active population) and many young people, even university grads, remain unemployed before the age of 30 years old.
In this context where it is difficult to find a stable and well-paying job, refresher courses from a personal tutor who is also an educational advisor become a major asset.
Find tutors near me on Superprof.
However, not everyone in these parts of Europe has enough money to afford a private home teacher.
These statistics about remedial education concern:
- 83% of Maltese secondary school students,
- 69% of Greek students,
- 36% of French students,
- and 21% of German pupils.
Countries in the South of Europe are also much more densely populated than in the North. For example, Spain has over 46 million inhabitants, France 67 million, Italy 60 million in comparison to 5 million in Norway, 5.5 million in Finland and 9.6 million in Sweden.
Our hypothesis is that due to many reasons, the inflated population being one of them, competition is harder on the "labour market."
Private tutoring sessions become necessary and teachers become encouraged to offer remedial support lessons and to assist students who have difficulties in general subjects (English, Mathematics, Science, Geography, History, Foreign Languages, Economics, Chemistry and Physics).
In Western countries, online private tutoring agencies are accessible and at very affordable prices all from the comfort of the child's own home. Some popular websites include:
- Buddy School,
- Chegg Tutors,
- Classmill,
- Happy tutors,
- Sophia,
- Tutor.com etc.
Find out about private tutoring in Latin America.
Personal Tutoring in Africa
The African continent still houses, as of 2018, some of the least developed countries economically speaking.
Public infrastructures such as schools are less developed in comparison to other continents. States are too indebted to credit institutions (IMF, World Bank) or other more powerful countries. From a lack of better options, these impoverished countries are sometimes forced to adopt liberal economic policies (related to the free trade of the WTO).
Armed conflict, political instability, indebtedness, natural disasters... School systems in Africa still suffer because institutions are often private to ensure the security of children, however, many parents do not always have the means to enrol their children in these schools.
Despite the sad state of affairs, private tutoring in African countries is common because it increases the literacy rates of the young learners.
Find a tutor on Superprof.
However, it is often the NGOs and humanitarian organizations that provide academic support to students in common subjects, to overcome the shortcomings of the education and health system.
Learning to count from 1 to 10o, read and write is a means of liberation and socialization for all individuals.
It is a crucial tool for upgrading to learn foreign languages and offers support in physics, chemistry and mathematics. Private academic lessons also help middle economic classes to integrate into more distinguished schools and to rise in the social hierarchy.
Everyone wants a better life for their children.
Many types of literacy support have been implemented for children in Africa:
- Private and anonymous monetary donations,
- Cash transfers from Europe,
- Official Development Assistance (developed states officially pay less than 1% of their gross national income to develop and underdeveloped countries, not enough of a percentage if you ask me!)
- Humanitarian missions from NGOs and other small private charities: Aid for Africa, Helping Children Worldwide, African Children's Haven, Africa Classroom Connection etc.) Some of these organizations even offer free tutoring to students in need.
- Westerners going by themselves without any attachments to NGOs to provide help on the spot.
All these different supporters contribute to strengthening the network of the African school system and its weaknesses to provide academic refresher courses in all subjects (foreign languages, maths, physics and chemistry, history and geography).
Find a tutor here on Superprof.
Educational Support in Asian Countries
Remedial teaching is very intensive on the Asian continent.
Why is that?
Because in Asia, excellence, honour and academic achievement are imperatives, cultural aspirations.
South-East and North-East Asia include newly industrialized or "emerging" countries where access to prestigious universities is conditioned by a level of excellence during secondary school.
However, in Japan, a major economic world power, two-thirds of students have already sought out the assistance of a personal tutor who offers private academic learning sessions during primary school.
Within Asian families, social downgrading is viewed as shameful and worthy of disavowal.
Academic support allows for progress while limiting the frustration of not being able to rise above one's parents in the social hierarchy, even if the child has a higher university degree than the mother or father. In sociology, this phenomenon is known as the Anderson paradox.
Taking private tutoring classes thus enables students to access the preparatory classes of major universities that are difficult to access.
In Japan, students do not rest or go to church on Sundays. They do not have school holidays and often ask for the assistance of a tutoring specialist to come to their homes and offer them one on one private lessons to deepen the concepts taught by their schoolteachers.
In South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, China, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, parents' expectations of their children is equally enormous. Student success in non-negotiable for students and parents with many pupils in these countries taking private academic classes in the evening until about 9 or 10 pm.
In the other less advanced Asian countries, Philippines, Indonesia, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia, extra school support is viewed as extremely valuable, even higher than nations in Europe, but for completely distinct reasons.
Economic inequalities and social gaps are so prevalent that having the means to pay a teacher to come to your home and offer private classes to your child is an aspect of social climbing.
As a personal academic educator, you are spoiled for choice to go and give private classes all over the world. Spin the globe and choice your destination!
Tutoring services are viewed as invaluable across all of the world's continents. If you are a private teacher, you will never be without work!
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