It is every parent's wish to let their children in the best schools and have a better education. We will never be satisfied with the current school teaching. Private tuition exactly fits our needs for a one-to-one, extra opportunity for our children to learn more; hence tuition agencies popped up.
Let's take a closer look at what values tuition agencies create.
They provide economic values
For society
Private tutoring, as a mature industry that has been creating economic values for society, still has a huge market and great potential to contribute to the national economy.
Based on the 2017-2018 Household Expenditure Survey by the Department of Statistics, resident households on average spend $112 a month on private tuition and other educational courses.
Excluding the income of private tutors who do not register as business entities, total revenue in tuition industry rose from S$1.5 billion in 2017 to S$1.68 billion in 2019.
In this process, tuition agencies play essential roles in collecting and integrating information to facilitate the matching between clients and tutors, so that they can better improve the effectiveness of private tutoring and provide convenience for this industry to create more economic values.
For individuals
The emergence of tuition agencies can increase job opportunities, promote employment, and help raise personal income to some extent. Take Singapore as an example. There are around 400 tuition agencies and over 30 thousand full-time private tutors in Singapore, giving citizens another potential career option that maybe they can work as a tutor.
Meanwhile, tutors are paid very well. Take a look at the following statistics.
Based on the home tuition rates, full-time tutors can rate $35-$50 an hour teaching primary school or secondary school students and $60-80 an hour teaching JC students.
The image beside shows the 2022 tutor salaries range in Singapore (salaryexplorer, 2022). Also, 75% of tutors are earning more than 4,630 SGD, within which 25% are earning more than 9,630 SGD.
They provide service & convenience
For parents
Tuition agencies will shortlist tutors for the clients according to certain requirements. It means that parents do not need to worry about seeking tutors by themselves. They will search for tutors for various subjects from the tutor database and match them with parents. After matching, they'll also help with the negotiation process, such as the tuition rate, timing, teaching style, etc. They are like a mediator, coordinating and arranging between their clients and their tutors
For tutors
Similarly, the tutor will also have access to a wide range of clients with different needs offered by the agencies. Besides, tuition agencies have a reasonable accounting workflow, and generally, it is them who take charge of the payment process. There is no need for tutors to go through those awkward and complicated payment processes of asking for payment from the client and being chased up by the agency to remind them to pay the commission from the client's fee.
For students
As tuition agencies provide all these conveniences mentioned above for tutors, they can put more effort into improving their tutoring; therefore, it would also benefit students' studies. Also, they may gather and summarize some statistics or information regarding current learning issues, and post them on their websites or social platforms from time to time for students’ reference. Thus, they can also provide students with some up-to-date info and guidance.
Conclusion
Tuition agencies have emerged in response to the needs of society and people, and have created values in many aspects. They bring new dynamism to the national economic market, offer new opportunities for people as well as provide great convenience to the service recipients.