The McTutor World is still expanding across the globe and now has a significant foothold in Canada, particularly in the metropolitan areas and fast-growing suburbs. Private tutoring is the “new normal” for urban families, continues to grow by leaps and bounds, and remains the fastest growing segment of Canadian K-12 education.
The tutoring business has bounced back from the blip of the 2008 economic meltdown and is stronger than ever, generating more than $1 billion in revenues a year. From 2010 to 2013, Kumon Math centre enrollment in Canada rose by 23% and is now averaging 5 % growth a year. One in three city parents in Toronto now hire private tutors for their kids and current estimates approach that proportion in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal.
My September 4-5, 2014 CBC Radio Drive Home Show interviews focused on the trend and tackled the bigger question of why today’s parents were turning increasingly to after-school tutors to supplement the regular school program. A recent inquiry from Peter Stockland at Cardus Foundation prompted me to take another look to see what has changed over the past three years. That’s why I decided to revisit the whole question and update my research findings.
Over the past three years, the private tutoring explosion has continued, unabated, and the global market forecast to reach $102.8 billion by 2018 is now projected to be $227 billion by 2022. A September 2016 world trends study by Global Industry Analysts attributed the current boom to three main factors: 1) growing pressure of students to achieve higher grades; 2) the rise of individualized, self-paced academic tutoring plans; and 3) the need to acquire competencies and new knowledge to compete in the global job market. E-learning and online programs are assuming a bigger and bigger share of the private tutoring business.
Six global trends in tutoring are now more visible right across Canada:
- the rise of 24 x 7 private online tutoring;
- increased focus on skill-based learning (reading, mathematics, and coding);
- growing desire for academic excellence;
- increase in education expenditures ( per pupil and as per cent of GDP);
- the emergence of Age Inappropriate Learning (AIL), code for ‘reach ahead’ programs;
- shortage of teachers for tutoring centres and colleges.
Private tutoring is now a global business. Eighty-five companies are active globally and five are dominant: JEI, Kaplan, Educomp Solutions, Kumon/Tutor Vista, and Daekyo Company. The Asia Pacific countries, as might be expected, account for a 58.7 per cent share of the business.
We now inhabit an increasingly competitive global world. International student testing is one symptom and so are provincial testing programs — and parents are better informed than ever before on where students and schools rank in terms of student achievement. While high school graduation rates are rising, student performance indicators are either flat-lined or declining, especially in Atlantic Canada. In most Canadian provinces, university educated parents also have higher expectations for their children and the entire public education system is geared more to university preparation than to employability skills.
System issues continue to influence parents who turn to tutors to address learning deficits in their children. A “Success for All” philosophy and the new focus on “student wellbeing” rather than student achievement provide further inducements to enroll children and teens in foundational and accelerated tutorial programs after school and on weekends. A 2015 Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) survey showed more Ontario parents opting for private tutoring and, for the first time, that parents who identified as middle or upper class more likely to be using private tutors, giving their children a further advantage.
New elementary school curricula in Literacy and Mathematics compound the problem —and both “Discovery Math” and “Whole Language” reading approaches now face a groundswell of parental dissent, especially in Manitoba, Alberta, British Columbia, and Ontario. It’s no accident that the private tutors provide early reading instruction utilizing systematic phonics and most teach Math using traditional numbers based methods.
Canadian academic researchers Scott Davies and Janice Aurini identified the dramatic shift, starting in the mid-1990s, toward the franchising of private tutoring. Up until then, tutoring was mostly a “cottage industry” run in homes and local libraries, mainly serving high schoolers, and focusing on homework completion and test/exam preparation. With the entry of franchises like Sylvan Learning, Oxford Learning, and Kumon, tutoring evolved into private “learning centres” in cities and the affluent suburbs. The new tutoring centres, typically compact 1,200 sq. ft spaces in shopping plazas, offered initial learning level assessments, study skills programs, Math skills instruction, career planning, and even high school and university admissions testing preparation.
The tutoring explosion is putting real pressure on today’s public schools. Operating from 8:30 am until 3:00 pm, with “bankers’ hours,” regular schools are doing their best to cope with the new demands and competition, in the form of virtual learning and after-hours tutoring programs. Parents are expecting more and, like Netflicks, on demand! A much broader public conversation about the future of traditional, bricks and mortar, limited hours schooling is now underway and will force school systems to look at more flexibility in defining and limiting school hours.
What explains the increasing growth of private tutoring? Will the latest trend toward e-learning with online tutoring programs last? How will we insure that access to private tutors does not further deepen the educational inequities already present in Canada and the United States? Will the “Shadow Education” system expand to the point that public schools are eventually forced to respond to the competition?
Priorities Matter
Who said this at the latest researchED event in Toronto, Nov 10, 2017: “ Why is education the least empirical of all human pursuits? We need to build an empirical base.” ? Those may not be the exact words but I heard it over live broadcast and wasn’t there to note who said it or verify exact words.
Anyway, the point is that this conference was about sharing proven practices that work, and work repeatedly, in education. It was no surprise that such a statement should be made here. What remains is that there be a commitment to that mission, i.e., build that empirical base.
The definition of empirical is: “concerned with, or verifiable by observation or experience rather than theory or pure logic”.
Paul, in reporting the growth of tutoring in Canada and other parts of the world says: “It’s no accident that the private tutors provide early reading instruction utilizing systematic phonics and most teach Math using traditional numbers based methods.” Apparently to counter the rather ineffective results from “Discovery Math” and “Whole Language”.
Not on the 21st Century Learning bandwagon is this list from the Edvocate with 10 Essential Skills For The Education Leader of Tomorrow, Nov 11, 2017 http://www.theedadvocate.org/10-essential-skills-education-leader-tomorrow/ #2 says: “The ability to implement large-scale turnarounds. The bar is set increasingly high for student achievement in numeracy and literacy.”
Seems simple, doesn’t it? That’s the priority. It certainly is for most parents — strong numeracy and literacy. That’s why the explosion in tutoring. These are needed skills for today and tomorrow. It’s the schools that are lagging!
Why do they refuse to do it?
They are the educational predators.
And yet no government agency in Canada has agreed to track this phenomenon…despite multiple requests. It’s shockingly ironic that our publicly funded education systems across Canada proclaim excellence, yet will not acknowledge that 1 in 3 kids supplement their learning – usually by Grade 3, by attending out of school tutoring centres.
That’s not promoting excellence, that’s failing to acknowledge a growing deficit in our education system and widening the rift of our 2 tier education system in Canada.
When someone has all the power,how do we handle it,they aren`t accountable.School boards are dictatorships,the teachers can`t even talk about what is not working.
We have to look at what powerless people do.
Research Ed is a start.
There should be a strategy think tank at Research Ed or a PH.D. student should look at this as a thesis.
Tried to get Ontario’s EQAO to study this when I was on the board back in the day to no avail. When I was with SQE, I hoped the board would take up the cause but current CEO didn’t seem to be interested in doing anything. Thank goodness for ResearchEd!
We need a fresh look at the problem and involve the stakeholders.
Many teachers,speech paths and psycholologists care but they are stumped at how to deal with their admins.It frustrates the H out of them.
The child has to be the cause of why these administrations exist-not the adults,they have it all backwards.
Education Malpractice
This is the most haunting visual I have ever seen — about READING, or rather about being UNABLE to READ!
Every teacher should see this!
What kind of malady is this where a professional “refuses” or “withholds” a proven remedy?
Agreed.
Our local tutoring centre is seeing an influx of kids to help with their reading capabilities…they are falling behind…AGAIN.
Lawsuit lawsuit lawsuit…
If your child’s school is honestly preparing students for first year university math, you are fortunate.
Expecting this from some schools seems to be like expecting them to teach your child how to play piano. I have learned that it just doesn’t happen. Was it always like this?
FYI: Math tutors with zero education background are first rate teachers.
In Scarborough, Markham, Richmond Hill and Mississauga there is an explosion of Chinese based tutoring services that may be driving up totals, Same is true in Vancouver and Richmond BC.
Chinese parents fear their otherwise smart kids are behind in English unless born here and secondly, it makes a very handy after school program and great for Saturday morning Dim Sum for the adults.
Tunya-there are millions of the above stories in our back yards.
They are all around us.We are leaving behind minority students but it affects all socioeconomic sectors.Less so if the child has been read to I admit but Dyslexia for example,you can read to the child till you turn purple,sound based explicit systematic synthetic phonics with phonemic awareness training as a precursor is the answer.All the advocacy in the world won`t change that fact.
We have discussed it for years and many of us know it,the 64 million dollar question is what do we do about it and a movement like Research Ed had the press out.That is crucial,you know but does your neighbour know?
When the right people know and hear us,we can`t just complain-we`ll see a swing in the right direction.
Right now it`s a secret.
Also,for all advocates,don`t throw the word phonics around,it causes a furious response.
We need to discuss the new research and insight is provided with a new book by Dr. Mark Seidenberg,Language at the Speed of Light.
He discusses frankly the outrage he feels for the institutions that hold our children.
He says differing polarized views on reading instruction are similar to the issues
revolving around climate change.
You can look at my website for more testimonials of parent agony or a Ted Ex talk about a girl whose parents spent $400,000.00 to get her reading instruction that worked.
With all the talk about children`s mental health,there should be someone who will do a study on the mental health of grade 5-6 students who can`t read well and can barely write,they are suffering terribly.Shame,frustration,depression,school phobia,school absence,anxiety.
BC 2nd in science behind Alberta.
BC 1st in reading.
BC 2nd in math behind Quebec.
BC only province in top 2 all 3 subjects tested.
BC only streams math. IMHO this destroys all arguments against streaming.
Comment is irrelevant to the suject presented by the author Doug.
Put in wrong section. Rewrote in latest edition.