There is a school of thought that in Singapore, parents send their children to tuition because of the deficiencies of the educational system and that reforms such as reducing the student:teacher ratio will reduce the popularity of tuition.
This school of thought is wrong, since parents send their children to tuition so they can do better than (or at least keep up with) other children. Given that relative performance is a positional good, improving the educational system helps all students and will not reduce the demand for tuition:
"Parents in Singapore rely on tuition as the vehicle for their children to qualify for prestigious public schools and universities through bettering their exam results. A survey of 500 parents shows that the top two reasons for paying for tuition for their children are to improve their children’s grades and to help them keep up with others (Davie 2015a). This suggests a mentality of parentocracy where parents wish to give their children a head start in life by outperforming their peers in high-stakes exams in a highly competitive society. A mother of a child who is in primary five said that her daughter had performed poorly in school as she was the only pupil in her class who did not receive tuition (Davie 2015b). Another mother of a primary school child commented on the pressure to pay for private tuition for her child:
PSLE is a ranking exam and decides which stream and secondary school my child will enter. If everyone else is getting tuition to improve their results, then how can I not provide tuition for my child? She will lose out’’ (cited in Davie 2015b. para. 32).
Rather than viewing private supplementary tutoring as resulting in greater educational inequalities, most parents in Singapore perceive it as a means of promoting equal opportunity and social mobility by improving their children’s test scores. The majority of parents, and not just the wealthier and better-educated ones, are keen to optimise the learning conditions for their children through tuition and enrichment programmes (Davies 2015b). In so doing, they express their desire and commitment to assist their children to succeed in schools and boost their children’s ‘home advantage’ (Davies 2004). Unlike the case elsewhere where private supplementary tutoring works ‘‘in the interests of the already advantaged’’ (Coldron et al. 2010, p. 26), tutoring is welcomed by and within the reach of all parents, even low-income families, as a tool to upgrading one’s station in life (Yang 2015). The massification of tuition in Singapore reflects a socio-political logic of parental consumer choice and free-market mechanisms (Barrett DeWiele and Edgerton 2016)...
The function of PSLE as a screening and placement exercise based on the pupil’s exam results explains why as many as 80% of primary school children receive tuition that prepare students for high-stakes exams (Davie 2015a)... A mathematics tutor noted that tuition is viewed as a must-have by parents as the PSLE is a ‘‘do-or-die exam and a ticket to a good school. Parents will do their best to maximise their kid’s potential’’ (cited in Lee 2015). That the majority of parents—regardless of wealth and educational qualification—are prepared to spend on tuition shows that they believe in the meritocratic process of achieving academic success... The wash-back effect of high-stakes exams has triggered down to pre-school education where parents of young children rely on tuition to prepare their children for primary education. As noted by a parent,
In the past, it was all play and just learning the ABCs in kindergarten. But now, by K1 [Kindergarten Grade 1], you need to learn how to count and read, to be on a par with everyone else (cited in Teng 2015b, para. 10)...
The aspiration of parents to give their children a competitive edge through private supplementary tutoring does not mean that such tutoring is efficacious in improving the students’ exam scores and enhancing their life chances. To date, there is no empirical evidence that establishes a causal relationship between private supplementary tutoring in Singapore on the one hand and improved academic results and admission to elite schools on the other...
The relatively high level of equity for students in Singapore to succeed academically is noted in a report from OECD. Based on an analysis of data from the PISA 2012 results, the report concludes that 15.1% of disadvantaged students in Singapore performed among the top 25% of students across all participating countries and economies, after accounting for economic, social and cultural status (OECD 2013). That the percentage in Singapore is more than double the OECD average of 6.4% attests to a relatively high proportion of ‘resilient students’ who beat the socioeconomic odds against them and exceed expectations (OECD 2013)"
--- Private Supplementary Tutoring and Parentocracy in Singapore / Charlene Tan
Related:
Tuition has become an educational arms race | The Straits Times
7 in 10 parents send their children for tuition: ST poll | The Straits Times
"Nexus Link chief methodologist Jack Loo said the survey clearly showed that parents sent their children for tuition not because they believed grades will rise but because of peer pressure and competition.
"Parents perceive tuition as a form of safety net and something that is necessary because everyone else is doing it," he said.
Experts such as Nanyang Technological University economist Eus- ton Quah noted that the high prevalence of tuition does not indicate a lack of confidence in the education system. "It could simply be the consequence of an increased climate of competition," he said."
"The most common reason for tuition - cited by more than half of the parents with children under seven - was to keep up with others.
About a third of them hoped that tuition would improve their children's grades, while 15 per cent said it was to help them in their personal development."
An article I had been looking for for a long time, which it turned out I had earlier archived on my Livejournal:
Enrich or die? (2010)
"When her third child came, Miss L explained, she had resolved to give him a more relaxed childhood. The boy was spared the blitzkrieg of enrichment classes his elder siblings went through.
But barely two weeks after the boy entered Primary One, Miss L received a phone call from his Chinese teacher.
Of the 30 students in her class, the teacher said, 28 already knew Hanyu Pinyin (the romanisation system for Mandarin), even though she was only supposed to be teaching it in the months ahead. Miss L's son was one of the two that didn't.
The teacher said she couldn't hold 28 kids back for the sake of two.
Miss L promptly bundled her son off to an intensive Hanyu Pinyin class that cramped 6 months' worth of curriculum into 8 sessions.
The best part, my old classmates and I learnt, was that this took place not in an elite school, but in a neighbourhood school, somewhere in Tampines."
