Recent media coverage has been flooded with reports of students seeking private tuition support. What is happening to the education system? Does it need an overhaul, or are teachers being put under too much pressure to pass exams rather than teach a wider curriculum?

Survey reveals extra tuition boom

It has recently been reported that university undergraduates are hiring private tutors to help pass exams because they feel they are receiving inadequate teaching on their degree courses.

The willingness of undergraduates to pay up to £40 per hour for private tuition on top of annual fees of £3,145 is the latest evidence of students’ dissatisfaction with teaching standards that do not match their expectations.

The Ipsos Mori survey, by the Sutton Trust, found that one in five teenagers at state secondary schools in England and Wales have had a private tutor to help them with their schoolwork. The figure rises to nearly half of pupils in London. Growing numbers of parents are also turning to tutors to improve their children's grades, the survey of 2,199 11- to 16-year-olds revealed.

"The increased demand for private tuition is likely to reflect greater emphasis on tests and exams in today’s education system, and the perceived need for high grades to get into 'good' secondary schools and higher education," Alison Ryan, Association of Teachers and Lecturers (ATL) education policy adviser, told the Tutor Bulletin.

"Children and young people are under ever-greater pressure to get good grades from parents, teachers, schools and politicians and are formally tested more frequently, at the ages of 7, 11, 16 and 18.  Teachers and schools are under constant pressure from school league tables and Ofsted inspections, which means they are more likely to teach to the test to the detriment of spending time on subjects that are not tested."

There is more of an added pressure to achieve straight As to get into a top university and to achieve high grades to get in to first choice secondary schools. However, the problem this pressure causes is that low-income families are unlikely to have the finances for such private tuition, meaning students may fall behind their more affluent classmates.

Introduction of one-to-one tuition plan

It is a situation that the Government is seeking to tackle.

"Standards have never been higher in secondary schools, with massive levels of investment," a spokesman for the Department of Children, Schools and Families said. "We want all children, whatever their family’s income, to get the support they need to get back on track if they are falling behind.

"That’s why we are investing £138 million to massively expand one-to-one tuition for pupils falling behind in English and Maths from this September."

Called the national programme of individual tuition, the move aims to deliver one-to-one tuition for students aged seven to 16 who are making slow progress in English and Maths.  

John Bangs, Head of Education at the National Union of Teachers (NUT), believes that all children should have access to extra tuition support at key stages and welcomes the Government’s introduction of one-to-one tuition. Even so he feels this is still limited, as not all children will qualify for it under the Government’s selection process.

With a steady rise in students gaining private tuition support, will this be the pattern for the new way forward? In London, 43 per cent of pupils have had a home tutor, compared with 36 per cent in 2005.

"The thing that attracts parents to seeking extra tuition for their child is the personalised aspect that one-to-one tuition provides," says Darren Northcott, National Official for Education, NASUWT. "It is not about dissatisfaction of service but more about the attention their child will receive, if parents are prepared to pay for it they will.

"I think the point we would make here is that the education system has gone through a significant period of change, particularly over the past two decades and the record levels of educational attainment reached by pupils in both the primary and secondary sectors do not really suggest that an overhaul, so to speak, is what the education system needs", continues Northcott.

Increased pressures in schools to pass exams

With a case of competitiveness and target obsession in the education system pushing students into gaining extra tuition, there is less of an opportunity to develop at their own pace. Testing is no longer reserved for 11,16 and 18 year olds; the Government’s own research shows that in some cases it is starting at a surprisingly early age, with pupils being graded at the age of five.

Speaking to Jenni Russell at The Guardian, Mylene Curtis from Fleet Tutors stated that in a survey of her clients, 81 per cent said they were using tutors because they were unhappy with some elements of the state system. She says that at the primary stage parents are often losing faith in the teaching system. Parents believe that teachers are trying their best, but fear that staff are worn out and over-burdened by the ceaseless flow of bureaucracy and government initiatives. That makes parents insecure.

At secondary level, many are compensating for the fact that their children are being taught by teachers who don't have degrees in their subjects, something that is particularly common in Maths and Sciences. Others want their offspring to get the kind of focused attention and chances to ask questions that just aren't possible in a class of 30.

Mylene also believes there are a lot of parents who, for financial or ideological reasons, want to keep their children in the state system, but aren't prepared to see them underachieve as a result. They may be able to afford £400 a term for tutoring, but not the £4,000 a term for private school fees. She feels that it is very positive that the tutoring option is keeping parents in the system who might otherwise feel they couldn't stay.