Debated in Parliament on 16 Sep 2013.
Ms Janice Koh asked the Minister for Education (a) what is the effect of "shadow education" on social mobility and providing children with equal opportunities; (b) how has the growing private tutoring industry impacted the Ministry's ability to retain good teachers within the mainstream education system; (c) whether more should be done to make private supplementary tutoring less necessary and desirable in our system; and (d) whether the Ministry collects data to monitor this industry and its various impacts.
Mdm Speaker, I thank the hon Member for her question. Education continues to be an important avenue for social mobility. We are committed to supporting every student, regardless of his or her family background.
Our education system is run on the basis that tuition is not necessary. Some parents believe they can give their children an added advantage by sending them to tuition classes, even though their children are doing reasonably well. We cannot stop them from doing so.
However, tuition can be counter-productive for students who are already doing reasonably well in school. It can create unnecessary stress, make them easily bored in class and take time away from other programmes and activities which would have contributed to their holistic development.
For students who need additional support, we have comprehensive levelling-up programmes to ensure that they develop a good foundation in English and Mathematics. Our teachers are committed to their students' learning progress. They will provide remedial and supplementary classes for students who need the additional support. There are also community tuition schemes, like those run by self-help groups, and, in addition, many teachers, professionals and tertiary students also volunteer their time to help weaker students.
With MOE's comprehensive levelling-up programmes and the additional support given by the community, private supplementary tutoring is not necessary. We hope that parents will not add on to their children's workload and stress level by sending them to unnecessary tuition classes.
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Separately, the tuition industry has not made any significant impact on teacher attrition. The resignation rate of the Education Service remains low – at around 3% annually. In our exit interviews and surveys, joining the tuition industry has not been cited as a major reason for teachers leaving the Education Service.
To grow our pool of good teachers, MOE will continue to invest in attracting, developing and retaining our teachers. We offer teachers an attractive and meaningful long-term career, with opportunities for career progression and professional development. We also support them in fulfilling their career aspirations and meeting their work-life needs.
Mdm Speaker, I have just one supplementary question. I am happy to hear that MOE does not feel that private supplementary tuition should be desirable within a child's educational track, so to speak. However, based on scattered but available data, about 97% of Singapore students are enrolled in tuition and enrichment compared to, say, 49% of Primary school students and 30% of Secondary school students in 1992. The data is from 2008. The increase has been quite significant. Spending on tuition has also grown from about $410 million in 1998 to $820 million in 2008.
Based on our most recent household expenditure survey, Singaporeans spend about 1.1% to 2.2% of their household expenditure on tuition and educational expenses. Richer families spend a higher absolute amount and also a higher proportion of their household expenditures.
Ms Koh, you may want to put your question.
Is there a need, or is there some concern, to study this relationship between household income and expenditure on tuition and its impact on social mobility, given that we are facing rising income inequality and rising costs in Singapore? And what would be the impact of this study on our educational policy and our approach to making educational opportunities equal for all?
Mdm Speaker, there are actually two separate concepts embodied in the supplementary question asked by the Member. One is social mobility and the other is why parents go for tuition. If I may address the second question first. It would be a social mobility problem if the only way you could pass an examination in our education system is if you had tuition. Then it would be a social mobility problem because questions of "Can you
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afford tuition?" would come into play and, if you cannot, it means you are not able to make it. But that is not the case.
As I have indicated in my earlier answer, the education system is designed to be passed even without tuition generally. Having said that, we recognise that there are those who will not do as well as the others and who need support. For that, if we did nothing and we just left the children alone, that would be wrong. Because we recognise that for those who need additional support, we must help them. And because additionally, this Government and my Ministry recognise that those from lower income backgrounds will have more difficulties in being able to get tuition and pay for that, that is the reason why a comprehensive levelling-up programme has been introduced in the schools and that is across-the-board. That would be particularly useful for those who are unable to afford private tuition but, certainly, it is not limited to that group because the levelling-up programme is basically for anyone or any child who is not doing well in a particular subject.
That leads us to the other question which is why do so many parents still nevertheless send their children for tuition, including that group where the children are actually doing reasonably well in school. And there, really we have a situation where it is a question of what the parents think or what the parents believe. MOE's position is that actually such additional tuition for those who are doing reasonably well in school ought not to be necessary. We certainly do hope that the parents would have a more calibrated and balanced view of tuition and only send their children if there was a real need for it. Because if not, doing it within the context of the school and doing the levelling-up programmes within the context of the school would be a much better approach.
Mdm Speaker, I thank the Senior Minister of State for the reply. And I am very excited actually about MOE's vision to make every school a good school and, for example, to use technology and share best practices, to level up especially those who are weaker.
Just a couple of questions for the Senior Minister of State. I believe that there is some data to show that the tuition industry is – and these are a few years' old data – at least $800 million. I think, by now, it could be a $1-billion industry. If a survey is done, I think there are quite a number of star tutors or good tutors in the tuition industry who actually are ex-employees of MOE.
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I wonder if MOE could perhaps get together a taskforce, workforce or work team to take a serious look at this phenomenon and to advise what is the real status quo. And also to advise if there is a package of solutions, if needed, that could be implemented to address this phenomenon, if found out to be true.
Can I clarify with the Member, when she says this phenomenon, exactly what phenomenon does the Member mean?
That many households actually spend quite a bit of money on tuition in the hope that their children could do better and could get into what they perceive are better schools.
Insofar as the concern is that so many parents are sending their children for tuition, the key is really in whether or not, these parents believe that having that extra tuition is going to make the difference. And that is the point that I alluded to earlier, which is that within our school system, it is possible to pass the examinations without having to go for additional tuition where the child is doing reasonably well. It is a different thing if the child is having difficulty in coping with the lessons.
We can understand from the parent's point of view that every parent wants their child to have the best possible shot and, for many of them, for whatever reason, some of them believe that having tuition would give their children that additional edge, which we do not think is necessarily the case. So, the key to that really is in the parents' mindsets and belief. And we hope that the message will get out to parents not to pile on unnecessary tuition onto students.
A question for the Senior Minister of State. I agree with the point raised by the hon Member Ms Denise Phua that there are quite a number of private tutors who used to be teachers with MOE in the past. I am quite concerned about this. I wonder whether MOE will consider reviewing the provision given to teachers that they can give private tuition – existing current teachers who can give private tuition for up to about six hours per week; whether that can be reviewed where teachers can no longer do so. That could probably be a start to trying to curb this attraction towards the private tuition industry.
Mdm Speaker, insofar as the question is about good teachers leaving the Education Service to go into the private sector, as I indicated in the earlier answer, in general, the attrition rate is low. It is not to say that there will not be some who leave for whatever reasons and go into the
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private sector. Certainly, we would want to retain as many as we can in the Education Service.
Just as a quick rundown. The types of reasons that have been given for teachers leaving the Education Service are a whole range. Some have given domestic or personal reasons, some list external competition, they want to do other things, some for health reasons, some because they are not happy with the job but that is actually a very low percentage and then others which did not divulge their reasons.
That said, I think the key point made by Ms Denise Phua and Dr Intan is, if there are good teachers who would otherwise stay and if they can be kept within the Education Service, then that I feel we should certainly do so and our Ministry would look to the question of what these teachers feel would be a good reason for them to stay with the Education Service and if there are those who have left because of whatever reasons – they feel that they would get a better job or better opportunities in private sector – then we have to see whether those are people who can be persuaded to stay or for whatever reason they feel that no matter what, they would go out into the private sector. We can certainly look into that.
Thank you, Mdm Speaker. I just wanted to clarify the last part of my question which was not answered – whether the Ministry would consider studying the impact of tuition and enrichment on educational attainment, since so little data is available on the private tuition industry and its impact on our children.
We do not currently have the data to make such assessments of the impact. If you think about it, when the children go for tuition, they would not necessarily inform the Ministry: whether they are going for tuition, what their tuition is for and the impact that the tuition has had on them.
At this stage, I think I would not be able to say definitively that we would be able to do such a study based on the data that we have. But it is something that we can certainly keep an eye out for. We will think about that to see whether or not there is something which has a significant impact. We have to think quite carefully how we are going to do it. Because the actual mechanics and logistics of doing something like that have to be thought through quite carefully and you have to think where you get the data, how you analyse the data and how you interpret such data.
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