This book combines the ideologies of parentocracy and consumer theory as theoretical lenses to view the private supplementary tutoring, also known as shadow education, with a focus on the demand at primary and lower secondary levels in China. It first explains parents’ motivations of seeking private tutoring and their decision-making dynamics, and then explores the evolving micro-level process of demand that has changed over time. It further investigates how demand for private tutoring varies across parental socioeconomic status. This book also discusses parents’ attitudes towards the Double Reduction policy and corresponding changes in their demand for tutoring. It concludes with some implications for regulating private tutoring and for improving school education. This book has pertinence in other countries as well as in China. Unpacking the demand for tutoring improves understanding of the global expansion and changing shapes of the phenomenon. Researchers, educational policy-makers, teachers, tutors, consultants, and other educational practitioners interested in the topic of private tutoring will find this work thought-provoking, instructive and informative.

In all parts of Asia, households devote considerable expenditures to private supplementary tutoring. This tutoring may contribute to students' achievement, but it also maintains and exacerbates social inequalities, diverts resources from other uses, and can contribute to inefficiencies in education systems. Such tutoring is widely called shadow education, because it mimics school systems. As the curriculum in the school system changes, so does the shadow. This study documents the scale and nature of shadow education in different parts of the region. Shadow education has been a major phenomenon in East Asia and it has far-reaching economic and social implications.

Recent years have brought global expansion of private supplementary tutoring alongside regular school systems. This expansion has far-reaching implications for the nurturing of new generations, for social and economic development, and for the operation of school systems. Some dimensions are positive while other dimensions are problematic. Supplementary tutoring is especially visible in Asia. The formats of tutoring range from one-to-one provision to large classes. Some tutoring is provided by teachers and by specialist companies, while other tutoring is provided informally by university students and others. Using a comparative lens, this book examines possible government responses to the expansion of private supplementary tutoring. In general, the book suggests, the sector should be given more attention. The work shows wide diversity in the regulations introduced by governments in the Asian region. It notes not only that these governments can learn much from each other, but also that policy makers in other parts of the world can usefully look at patterns in Asia. The book also stresses the value of partnerships between governments, tutoring providers, schools, teachers' unions, and other bodies.

This book draws attention to supplementary education, which is growing in many parts of the world, but often goes unrecognized for what it is: a hidden form of privatized education. It provides 'big picture' analyses to comparatively explain the intensity, authority and policy contexts of supplementary education

This book focuses on the so-called shadow education system of private supplementary tutoring. In parts of East Asia it has long existed on a large scale and it is now becoming increasingly evident in other parts of Asia and in Africa, Europe and North America. Pupils commonly receive fee-free education in public schools and then at the end of the day and/or during week-ends and vacations supplementary tutoring in the same subjects on a fee-paying basis.Supplementary private tutoring can have positive dimensions. It helps students to cover the curriculum, provides a structured occupation for pupils outside school hours, and provides incomes for the tutors. However, tutoring may also have negative dimensions. If left to market forces, tutoring is likely to maintain and increase social inequalities, and it can create excessive pressure for young people who have inadequate time for non-academic activities. Especially problematic are situations in which school teachers provide extra tutoring in exchange for fees from their regular pupils.This book begins by surveying the scale, nature and implications of the shadow education system in a range of settings. It then identifies possible government responses to the phenomenon and encourages a proactive approach to designing appropriate policies.

Private supplementary tutoring, widely known as shadow education because of the way that it mimics mainstream schooling, has greatly expanded worldwide. It consumes considerable family resources, provides employment for tutors, occupies the time of students, and has a backwash on regular schools. Although such tutoring has become a major industry and a daily activity for students, tutors and families, the research literature has been slow to catch up with the phenomenon. The topic is in some respects difficult to research, precisely because it is shadowy. Contours are indistinct, and the actors may hesitate to share their experiences and perspectives. Presenting methodological lessons from diverse cultures, the book contains chapters from both high-income and low-income settings in Asia, Caribbean, Europe and the Middle East. Separately and together, the chapters present valuable insights into the design and conduct of research. The book will assist both consumers and producers of research. Consumers will become better judges of the strengths, weaknesses and orientations of literature on the theme; and producers will gain insights for design of instruments, collection of data, and interpretation of findings. The editors: Mark Bray is UNESCO Chair Professor in Comparative Education at the University of Hong Kong. Ora Kwo is an Associate Professor in the Comparative Education Research Centre at the University of Hong Kong. Boris Jokić is a Scientific Associate in the Centre for Educational Research and Development at the Institute for Social Research in Zagreb, Croatia.

Analyzes government responses to private tutoring, with references to the cases of Mauritius, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, and the Republic of Korea.

Private tutoring—supplementary, out-of-school instruction offered at a fee to individuals or groups—represents a substantial household expenditure, even in systems that claim to have free public education. It plays out across, alongside, and even within some school systems. Emerging as a ‘shadow education’, private tutoring now operates as a system and industry crossing national, regional, and social-class boundaries. Private tutoring is provided through different modes of delivery including the internet. Policy makers, parents, teachers, trade unions, corporations, community associations, and students are implicated in the private tutoring industry. The debates over private tutoring are therefore part of the larger struggles over the ends of education in just and equitable societies. The authors in this volume address diverse national settings of private tutoring across the Mediterranean, and examine its political, economic, social, and cultural underpinnings. They draw on a range of conceptual frameworks, and deploy a variety of research methods to problematize the multifaceted relationships between tutoring, learning, and equity. The volume captures a multiplicity of voices, and focuses on some of the central challenges facing education in pluralistic societies

An in-depth examination of the regulatory, entrepreneurial, and organizational factors contributing to the expansion and transformation of China’s supplemental education industry. Like many parents in the United States, parents in China, increasingly concerned with their children’s academic performance, are turning to for-profit tutoring businesses to help their children get ahead in school. China’s supplemental education industry is now the world’s largest and most vibrant for-profit education market, and we can see its influence on the US higher education system: more than 70% of Chinese students studying in American universities have taken test preparation classes for overseas standardized tests. The Fruits of Opportunism offers a much-needed thorough investigation into this industry. This book examines how opportunistic organizations thrived in an ambiguous policy environment and how they catalyzed organizational and institutional changes in this industry. A former insider in China’s Education Industry, sociologist Le Lin shows how and why this industry evolved to become a for-profit one dominated by private, formal, nationally operating, and globally financed corporations, despite restrictions the Chinese state placed on the industry. Looking closely at the opportunistic organizations that were founded by marginal entrepreneurs and quickly came to dominate the market, Lin finds that as their non-compliant practices spread across the industry, these opportunistic organizations pushed privatization and marketization from below. The case of China’s Education Industry laid out in The Fruits of Opportunism illustrates that while opportunism leaves destruction in its wake, it can also drive the formation and evolution of a market.

The involvement of private actors in education is not new yet in the last decade critical issues have arisen that demand close scrutiny. This volume explores emerging forms of the private through case studies from Africa, South Asia and South East Asia and makes three related observations. First, what is new about these manifestations is their scale, scope and penetration into almost all aspects of the education endeavour – from the administrative apparatus to policymaking, and from formal provision in education settings to out-of-school activities, such as private tutoring. Second, what is particularly controversial about these developments is how education itself is being recast; as a sector it is increasingly being opened up to profit-making and trade, and to agenda-setting by private, commercial interests. Third, the learner is increasingly conceptualised as a consumer, and education a consumer good. The case studies therefore enable us to see more clearly how different forms of the private in education alter what is at stake, for whom, and with what outcomes, and the consequences for individuals and societies. In turn, these raise the very important question about what they mean for our conceptualisations of education, learning and teaching, on the one hand, and for education as a site and means for emancipation, on the other. These are profound social justice concerns, and ones that make this volume distinctive. This book sets out to address these hard, but urgent, questions and will be of interest to academics and students of education, education researchers, government personnel and policymakers.