8th June 2011 9:00
By Blue Tutors
The market for private tuition in Hong Kong is bigger than ever, and, as reported on Google, it only looks set to grow in the coming years. The tuition market in Hong Kong is estimated to be worth 400 million HKD (roughly £30m), and some tutors are reputed to earn close to £1m per year. It’s claimed that this is all due to the frantic race to come top in the university entrance exams, and achieve one of the scarce university places in Hong Kong.
Tutors in Hong Kong have almost celebrity status, and are plastered over billboards and double-decker buses throughout the city. Indeed, many of the tutors have the appearance of models, rather than tutors. One of the tutors interviewed, Richard Eng, has his own tuition business, and drives around Hong Kong in a Lamborghini, and lives in a multi-million dollar mansion in the fashionable Yuen Long district. Eng says that his tutorial school has enrolled 100,000 students this year, and he has tapped the Hong Kong market by advertising his 100 tutors in ‘flashy’ ways throughout the city.
There is a worry however, among the more experienced tutors in the city, that standards may be slipping as many tuition schools focus on their outward appearance, rather than the quality of their lessons. The ostentatious advertising has gone so far that some tutors produce their own soap operas to attract students. One tutor, Kelly Mok, agreed that sometimes lessons are more like a performance than actual teaching, convincing students that one is a good tutor, seems more important than actually being a good tutor.