19th October 2018 9:00
By Blue Tutors
It’s fair to say that private tuition isn’t universally popular. Some people react to what we do by saying that they feel the education system should be ‘fairer’; it shouldn’t be the case that students whose parents can afford to hire a tutor are the students who succeed in academia; less affluent families missing out. It’s a long-argued point: socialism versus capitalism, and it divides people.
Let’s be honest, education is unfair. There are lots of fee paying schools in the UK and their students tend to do better in GCSEs and A Levels. On top of that, there are non-fee paying schools, but schools where you have to live in a certain catchment area to be offered a place, and that catchment area often means owning a more expensive house. There is a clear correlation between wealth and quality of education in this country.
The idea of whether tuition is unfair or not probably comes down to the view you take on education. From parents’ and students’ points of view education is often seen as a competition. Students compete with each other to get the best grades, whether that’s in school entrance exams to earn a place at the best secondary schools, or at A Levels to get into the best universities. The best graduates then tend to earn more than their counterparts which for many people is the goal of the ‘competition’.
There is an alternative view of education. The view which, for example, the government has to take which is that improving education means improving the overall intelligence and skill of the population. This has to be seen as a positive thing. Obviously within that students are still competing, but the goal of the government is not to hold a fair competition, it’s to make best use of their resources.
Where does tutoring fit in? Well there’s no doubt that students and parents hire a tutor to try and be better in the competition, but many tutors see their role as improving understanding and creating a better student; someone better equipped to be productive and intelligent when they begin working. If every student in the country had access to a tutor for an hour a week, tuition would be a strange thing to criticise, it would actually be lauded. We criticise it for being unfair because not everyone has a tutor and because those families who hire one tend to be more affluent.