Private Subtractory Tutoring: The Negative Impact of Shadow Education on Public Schooling in Myanmar

An expanding literature focuses on the so-called shadow education system of private supplementary tutoring, and contributes to understandings of the nexus between in-school and out-of-school learning. This paper, contextualised in broader literature, draws on questionnaire and interview data from students, teachers, principals, parents and other stakeholders in Myanmar, and observes that shadow education may subtract as well as supplement. For some decades, public education in Myanmar has suffered from financial stringency, large classes, and overloaded curriculum. Students and their families have sought private tutoring, particularly from public school teachers, to supplement school education; and teachers and other providers have welcomed the revenue that they can earn. As a result, private tutoring has become embedded in the lives of many students and teachers, and has consumed time and energy supposed to be spent on school education. However, the private tutoring has also helped to keep the school system running.     

补习教育的地域延展及其社会效应分析

当前,补习教育主要有非正式组织的家教和机构化的校外培训两种形式。它在全球迅速蔓延,从发达国家到发展中国家,从城市到乡村,都可以看到课外补习现象。它的规模存在地区间的差异,凸显了社会不平等状况。它具有社会复制和社会分层两大负面效应,是维护和加剧社会不平等的一个具体通道。虽然各国政府对补习教育的态度和政策响应各异,但在市场经济条件下,它的发展已不可阻挡,理应得到有效管理。     

Spatializing a global education phenomenon: private tutoring and mobility theory in Cambodia

ABSTRACT

Along with the dramatic expansion of private tutoring around the world, a significant body of literature has been produced to understand this phenomenon. While many studies consider the issue of geographic location, the spatial dimension tends not to be a central focus of private tutoring studies. In contrast, the present essay applies mobility theory to research from Cambodia, where private tutoring is essential to student success. It does so in order to place private tutoring provision into a broader perspective that includes but moves beyond the economic dimensions of supply and demand and the sociological dimensions of economic, cultural, and social capital to include consideration of how private tutoring provision is constrained by a multidimensional spatial field of possibilities and how private tutoring participation is enabled by one’s position and abilities in relation to that field. The paper argues for increased attention to ‘spatial capital’ in studies of private tutoring and education generally.     

韩国补课如何影响数学成绩？——基于TIMSS 2019数据的双层线性模型分析

韩国中小学生普遍补课,背后的关键假设是补课有利于提高学习成绩,但是补课和成绩的关系究竟如何,目前尚无定论。此外,补课的作用可能因条件而异,有必要更加细致地考察补课对不同群体的作用。本研究基于“国际大型数学与科学趋势研究”（TIMSS）2019八年级测评数据,采用双层次线性模型进行分析,发现韩国八年级学生补课时间越长,数学成绩就越好。在此基础上,如果学生所在学校平均补课时间长,学生成绩将额外增加;这种作用可被该校学生的整体家境组成所部分解释。学生补课时长与成绩的关系既不因学校而异,也不因其学业水平的高低而异;但是学生家庭经济与文化资本越薄弱,补课久与成绩提升的关系越大。本研究还发现,校内数学教师的教学水平能够在一定程度上中和补课与成绩的关系,但是这种作用比较有限。韩国已然形成补课主导的教育生态,补课对成绩有顽强的预测力,其背后反映的是学生与家长在学业竞争中胜出的需求无法在公办教育中得到满足;反过来,韩国的补课市场提供了更加多元化、个性化的教育。     

经济不平等时代的校外教育参与

在经济不平等、基础教育均衡化和"互联网+教育"并行发展的背景下,校外补习进入新阶段,其特征是广泛参与和深入参与。校外补习逐步发展为政府和市场共同提供的校外教育活动,这些活动受到微观、中观和宏观三个层次因素的影响。当前校外教育领域出现三大趋势:一是基础教育均衡化政策和高等教育的分层发展战略促使基础教育竞争从校内转向校外;二是经济不平等的环境中,父母加大了对校外教育的参与,密集化育儿文化出现并广为扩散;三是互联网等技术的普及消除了校外补习的有限参与障碍,拓宽了家庭教育选择的范围。政策—文化—技术的互动促使家庭的校外教育活动参与日趋制度化。其后果是基础教育从"高校内竞争、低校外竞争,低补习参与"的低水平均衡转化为"低校内竞争、高校外竞争、高补习参与"的高水平均衡。在后补习时代,校外教育活动逐步成为社会分层与流动的主要工具。政府应调整对校外教育的认识,承担起弥合校外教育参与的阶层差异的责任。     

Private Supplementary Tutoring and Parentocracy in Singapore

Drawing on Brown (in Br J Sociol Educ 11(1):65–86, 1990) and Barrett DeWiele and Edgerton (in Interchange 47:189–210, 2016), this article explores the relationship between private supplementary tutoring and parentocracy using Singapore as an illustrative case study. It is argued that the ubiquity and affordability of private supplementary tutoring in Singapore indicate that parentocracy is embraced by the majority of parents who seek to give their children a competitive edge. Among the parents, better-educated parents with higher incomes adopt a more proactive interventionist parenting style by paying more for both academic and non-academic enrichment classes. The phenomenon of parentocracy has contributed to educational inequalities in Singapore as children from more privileged home backgrounds have access to more educational resources and opportunities. But the inequalities engendered by parentocracy are mitigated by high-stakes exams that ensure that admission to elite schools is still largely determined by exam results rather than the wealth and wishes of parents. This study offers a nuanced account of private supplementary tutoring through highlighting its diversity and appropriation by different parents in Singapore. The study also illustrates the co-existence of parentocracy and meritocracy where private supplementary tutoring is strategically utilised by parents in Singapore to give their children an equal opportunity to excel in terminal exams.     

School systems as breeding grounds for shadow education: Factors contributing to private supplementary tutoring in West Bengal,India

In the academic literature, private supplementary tutoring is widely known as shadow education, in part because it is commonly indistinct and because much of its content mimics that in mainstream schooling. Around the world, shadow education has become an important part of students' lives and in some places it diminishes the body that it mimics. This paper builds on studies that have focused on relationships between schooling and shadow education. The paper uses the conceptual lens of privatisation-by-default, and employs qualitative methods to understand the roles of both government and private schools in promoting tutoring in West Bengal, India. It finds that substantial proportions of shadow education emanate from and are fostered by school systems. On the one hand private tutoring as a form of privatisation-by-default gives freedom of choice, but on the other hand it limits choice. Further, school-bred tutoring can have a negative backwash on school systems. As such, private supplementary tutoring is not just a neutral shadow but affects the body that it imitates. The study recommends researchers to look back at schools to gain a deeper understanding of private supplementary tutoring.     

Differentiated demand for private supplementary tutoring: Patterns and implications in Hong Kong secondary education

A growing number of students around the world receive private tutoring in academic subjects. Such tutoring is widely called shadow education because it mimics regular schooling as the school sector grows, so does the shadow; and as the curriculum in the school changes, so does the curriculum in the shadow. Private tutoring has long been a significant phenomenon in East Asia, but has not received adequate research attention.This paper focuses on private tutoring in Hong Kong. It draws on data collected through questionnaires from students in Grades 9 and 12, and analyzes the factors which shape the demand for private tutoring. The paper highlights the influence of school, family and individual factors on students’ demand, and reports on students’ declared reasons for taking private tutoring. It commences with a broad comparative picture, and concludes by showing what the Hong Kong data add to wider conceptual understanding.     

Behind the façade of fee-free education: shadow education and its implications for social justice

Most governments, at an official level, espouse the principles of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Among its statements is that education shall be free, at least in the elementary and fundamental stages. Yet while the façade of government education systems presents an image that instruction is free of charge, families across the world increasingly find it necessary to invest in the so-called shadow education system of private supplementary tutoring. The spread of shadow education, which is no longer confined to relatively prosperous families, has far-reaching implications for social inequalities and therefore social justice. It is a hidden form of privatisation behind the façade of public education systems; and the fact that shadow education is seen by many families as unavoidable appears to be incompatible with the spirit of the Universal Declaration. The question then is whether the spirit of the Universal Declaration should be abandoned, or whether it should be protected—and, if so, how.     

The dynamic role of cultural capital in the competitive school admission process: a Chinese experience

School choice in China is a parent-initiated bottom-up movement characterised by the payment of a substantial ??choice fee?? to the desired school, and parents?? positional competition through the use of cultural, social and economic capital, before and during the school choice process. This study demonstrates that Chinese middle class parents?? cultural capital and their efforts to help their children to accumulate cultural capital through after-school activities greatly increase their positional advantage in the competitive school admission process in China. The Chinese practice of acquiring cultural capital outside the family has to some extent extended the development of Bourdieu??s cultural reproduction theory. The widespread practice of such actions by middle class families clearly illustrates how cultural capital can be used to maintain social stratification by perpetuating educational inequalities that lead to unequal life opportunities for differently schooled people.     

Private tutoring and mass schooling in East Asia: reflections of inequality in Japan, South Korea, and Cambodia

This paper examines private tutoring systems in three East Asian countries (Japan, South Korea, and Cambodia) with the purpose of examining the relationship between those systems and formal education systems. The study of private tutoring systems in each nation can be used to reveal the inadequacies of the formal education system in meeting the ideal of equal opportunity of education in relation to high-stakes examinations. In each nation, the private tutoring system functions as a “shadow education market” to absorb unmet demand for additional education in a parasitic relationship with the formal system. Governments have enacted various policies to respond to the growing private tutoring systems which have proven largely ineffective and often led to further expansion. Pedagogical and curricular practices in the private tutoring systems have functioned to increase “anxiety” and “insecurity” in regard to the formal education system with the purpose of expanding the market. Studies of mass schooling systems and equal opportunity are incomplete without due consideration toward the role of the private tutoring system. Efforts toward education policy-making and reform to further the ideal of equal opportunity of education must be informed by such research on private tutoring.     

Markets,schools and the convertibility of economic capital: the complex dynamics of class choice

While economic capital is not synonymous with cultural, social or symbolic capital in either its constitutional or organizational form, it nevertheless remains the more flexible and convertible form of capital. The convertibility of economic capital has particular resonance within ‘Celtic Tiger’ Ireland. The state’s reluctance to fully endorse an internal market between schools has resulted in middle‐class parents using their private wealth to create an educational market in the private sector to help secure the class futures of their children. Using data from recent studies of second‐level education in Ireland, and data compiled on the newly emerging ‘grind’ schools (private tuition centres), we outline how the availability of economic capital allows middle‐class parents to choose fee‐paying schooling or to opt out of the formal school sector entirely to employ market solutions to their class ambitions. The data also show that schools actively collude in the class project to their own survival advantage.     

初中生课外补习城乡差异分析——基于甘肃、湖南和江苏3省的初中学生课外补习调查

面对巨大的升学压力,学生和家长纷纷选择课外补习,使得课外补习在各地蔓延.不同级别城市、来自不同家庭背景、学校教育条件等都会对学生参与课外补习的选择产生影响.本文主要关注省城中学和县城中学的学生在选择课外补习上的差异,深入探讨这些学生参与课外补习与家庭背景的关联性,特别是城乡差别对课外补习的影响.本研究基于对3个不同经济发展水平省份的初中学生课外补习调查.     

“影子教育”之全球扩张：教育公平、质量、发展中的利弊谈

"影子教育"这一术语已被广泛用于描述利用校外时间对学校科目进行的私人补充教育。在世界上的一些地区,"影子教育"已作为一种显著的教育现象历经了几十年,而在另一些地区,则是在近几年才变得突出。"影子教育"在全球逐渐扩张,中国也不例外。它给政策制定者、教师、家庭和学生带来了一系列挑战。"影子教育"在有些方面是有益的,但在有些方面却带来了问题。     

Equalising schooling,unequalising private supplementary tutoring: access and tracking through shadow education in China

The global expansion of mass schooling has greatly increased opportunities for low-income families, and governments have devoted much effort to equalising access and quality in education systems. Alongside regular schooling, the so-called shadow education system of private supplementary tutoring has grown rapidly across the world. The fact that rich families can purchase more and better quality shadow education undermines the achievements of increased equality of opportunities in formal schooling. Drawing on a mixed-methods study in Shanghai, China, the article shows how shadow education has offset school equalisation policies through differentiation of access and through sorting mechanisms. Shadow education occupies a space beyond strict government control in which privileged families and elite schools ignore and mediate the equalisation policies, seeking competitive advantages. Uneven access to shadow education and tracking within it shape, maintain, and exacerbate inequitable schooling experiences at individual and institutional levels.     

Shadow education: patterns and scale of private supplementary tutoring in English in secondary education at urban Dhaka in Bangladesh

Private supplementary tutoring with an additional fee is generally called shadow education, and this has become a common phenomenon in urban Dhaka, where patterns and scale of tutoring in English have been remarkable in recent years. This study used a mixed-methods approach that included quantitative and qualitative data collected from a survey and individual interview. Tutoring in English has been a regular feature of the teaching profession in this urban area. The paper examines various patterns of private tutoring in English and focuses on the amount of tutoring, including the tutoring received and not received by students in urban Dhaka. It shows the variations of scale regarding tutoring in English between male and female students. The study also identifies different types of private tutors who deliver supplementary tutoring. Finally, the choices pupils make regarding their evaluation on the effectiveness of shapes of tutoring in English are discussed.     

Responsibilising parents: the nudge towards shadow tutoring

This article considers moral agendas projected onto parents that mobilise them to supplement school literacy education with private tutoring. The theoretical frame draws on the concepts of responsibilisation as emerging market-embedded morality, ‘nudge’ social policies, edu-business and hidden privatisation in education. This framing is applied to two empirical moments: firstly, debates around the Australian government’s ‘Tutorial Voucher Initiative’ of 2004; and secondly, tutoring advertisements and items in school newsletters collected in early 2016. In the first moment, parents were somewhat reluctant to take up free supplementary tutoring; in the second, private literacy tutoring is increasingly normalised and legitimated as parents are nudged to supplement the work of the school.     

Private supplementary tutoring among primary students in Bangladesh

Using the databases created under Education Watch, a civil society initiative to monitor primary and basic education in Bangladesh, this paper explores trends, socioeconomic differentials and cost in private supplementary tutoring among primary students and its impact on learning achievement. The rate of primary school students getting access to private supplementary tutoring is increasing at two percentage points per year and reached 31% in 2005. Incidence of private tutoring was greater among boys and urban students than respective counterparts. Educated parents and well‐off families were more likely to arrange supplementary tutoring for their children. A wide variation in the cost for private tutoring prevailed. The tutees spent 46% of their total private expenditure for education on supplementary tutoring. Supplementary tutoring helped students learn more than those who had no such support. Private tutors for primary school students have become a well‐accepted norm. Finally, a number of social implications are discussed.     

Private Supplementary Tutoring in the Czech Republic

The study contributes to the literature on private supplementary tutoring by shedding light on this phenomenon in the Czech Republic. The aim of the paper is to identify the reasons for seeking out private supplementary tutoring and to assess the factors underlying its demand. In the representative sample of 1,265 senior upper-secondary school students from two distinct regions of the Czech Republic, 37% acknowledged participation in private tutoring lessons (provided by individuals) and 10% reported enrollment in preparatory courses for university admission (organized by institutions) during their upper-secondary studies. It seems that both enrollment in different educational tracks and specific school subjects are associated with different reasons for taking private tutoring lessons. The results of binary logistic regression suggest that the mother’s educational attainment, family income, students’ academic performance, residence in the capital city, and female gender are significant predictors of students’ enrollment and participation in the explored private tutoring activities. These findings confirm the strong influence of family background on educational attainment identified in previous Czech social-stratification research. In a wider European context, the patterns of private supplementary tutoring resemble those in neighboring countries.     

参加课外补习有助于中考升学吗--基于CFPS2010-2018追踪数据的实证分析

研究基于北京大学中国家庭追踪调查2010年、2012年、2014年、2016年和2018年五个抽样年的追踪数据,使用倾向值得分匹配法(PSM)并建立结构方程中介模型,围绕初中阶段的课外补习参与对高中教育机会获得的影响,及其在家庭资本影响高中教育机会获得过程中的中介作用进行了探讨。结果显示:初中阶段的课外补习参与在家庭资本与是否升入高中以及是否升入普通高中之间存在中介效应,在家庭资本与是否升入重点普通高中之间不存在中介效应。以上结论说明,由于课外补习的强势介入,教育发挥社会再生产功能的作用机制已发生转变,课外补习和学校教育在教育发挥社会再生产功能过程中的联合作用机制得以验证。