Is it worth to pay tuition via Zoom?

[Lisafuller]

If you commute into the office for work, you spend 9-10 hours there. The portion of your salary that considers your transportation expenditure is but a small fraction of your overall pay packet.

Compare that to a dedicated “house call” for a 1.5 to 2 hour session. The portion of the fee that considers the transportation expenditure and time taken to reach your home is not just a little, but many multiples higher.

In other words, a significant premium is built into a tutor’s fee to cover the time and expense of a dedicated house call.

Even an electrician here won’t make a dedicated house call unless you pay them a $50 transport fee, even if they fix nothing!

I don’t think thats true. A competent private tutor typically charges $60/h minimally for a one-to-one session. Multiply that by 7 (assuming a 9 hour work day where the remaining 2 hours are travel time) and he only makes $420 a day. Multiply that by 261 working days, you get $109K, a decent salary similar to what you would make in the corporate sector. This means that the fees they charge are similar to what you would get paid at any other white collar job, just that it may seem like more since it is given in per hour.

[Lisafuller]

My wife manages all the tutors, fortunately I don’t get involved (if I was, there wouldn’t be any tutors ).

According to her, in the early days a few of the tutors were willing to give up the transport, what amounted to around a $20 discount. Others gave some extra time (which I think is the minimum one should expect). However, now almost all are saying “this is the new normal” and and reverted back to original pricing… all except the Chinese tutor. Maybe there are too many Chinese tutors, too easy to replace?

Probably Chinese work ethic.

[midlet2013]

You could say the same about schools and teachers or Universities, all information is in books and online, so why would a smart person need a teacher or professor to teach stuff that can be read.

Agree, tuition is not only for the academically weak. It’s for anybody who wishes to reinforce their learning, or get ahead by pre-learning new material.

I am not criticising School or Univ. They mite have issues too. But tuition means taking extra classes beyond school cuz School is not enough. So u shd be critiquing schools for not being enough, which causes people to take extra tuitions.

For most cases , its prelearning which leads to better grades when facing the exam a second time. Its not about learning for most people.

[ProvenPracticalFlexible]

You could say the same about schools and teachers or Universities, all information is in books and online, so why would a smart person need a teacher or professor to teach stuff that can be read.

Agree, tuition is not only for the academically weak. It’s for anybody who wishes to reinforce their learning, or get ahead by pre-learning new material.

I am not criticising School or Univ. They mite have issues too. But tuition means taking extra classes beyond school cuz School is not enough. So u shd be critiquing schools for not being enough, which causes people to take extra tuitions.

For most cases , its prelearning which leads to better grades when facing the exam a second time. Its not about learning for most people.

If we now change the discussion about tuition in general, then yes absolutely agree. It's crazy that primary school kids have tuition in multiple topics.

But I don't think it's the school system to blame but rather the tiger mums and dads attitude.

Some kids might need support if they are not self learners but in general I don't believe that the crazy hours of extra tuition make that much difference in the actual outcome (exams, PSLE results ). The top grade ones would be top grade ones with or without tuition. Small improvement maybe but someone whose not very academically gifted for the lack of better term, won't suddenly become A+ student in Singapore school system.

Some kids need a bit more kicking in the butt, and parents don't have time for it, so it's outsourced to tuition centers and tutors. That buys you good conscience that you've done everything you should as a good parent. It's obviously also peer pressure for both parents and kids, nobody wants to be the only one who doesn't have tuition.

[midlet2013]

Its most the parents who drive this to minimise any chance of failure. But I do think tuitions make no difference to really smart ones. I never took tuitions and I am so glad I did not .

“The number one reason people fail in life is because they listen to their friends, family and neighbors”

– Napoleon Hill

[malcontent]

The saying is relevant… but things here are too far gone. Even teachers in local schools can’t be bothered to help their students and just tell them to go and ask their tutor! My daughter is studying right now while I type this. She has been studying since she got up this morning. She will continue studying non-stop except meals (sometimes even during) until at least 11pm tonight… and then tomorrow the same thing will repeat, weekdays or weekends, it makes no difference.

The local system is really too much. Not only do they over-learn, but they also have to memorize reams of details, and worst of all, the final test covers not just what they learned for the last chapter or few chapters, it’s the entire year of chapters! And get this, the tests are all essay questions which require you to regurgitate all of that detail you crammed in your head from the entire year. All this, just to pass with a decent grade, not flying colors.

[Lisafuller]

You could say the same about schools and teachers or Universities, all information is in books and online, so why would a smart person need a teacher or professor to teach stuff that can be read.

Agree, tuition is not only for the academically weak. It’s for anybody who wishes to reinforce their learning, or get ahead by pre-learning new material.

I am not criticising School or Univ. They mite have issues too. But tuition means taking extra classes beyond school cuz School is not enough. So u shd be critiquing schools for not being enough, which causes people to take extra tuitions.

For most cases , its prelearning which leads to better grades when facing the exam a second time. Its not about learning for most people.

Tuition can either be supplement to school learning or a replacement for school learning. Unfortunately the competitive local school system necessitates that many students take up additional classes in order to make sure they have understood the content or to relearn the content. Not ideal, but it’s a problem with the system, the schools are simply embedded in the system.

[Lisafuller]

Agree, tuition is not only for the academically weak. It’s for anybody who wishes to reinforce their learning, or get ahead by pre-learning new material.

I am not criticising School or Univ. They mite have issues too. But tuition means taking extra classes beyond school cuz School is not enough. So u shd be critiquing schools for not being enough, which causes people to take extra tuitions.

For most cases , its prelearning which leads to better grades when facing the exam a second time. Its not about learning for most people.

If we now change the discussion about tuition in general, then yes absolutely agree. It's crazy that primary school kids have tuition in multiple topics.

But I don't think it's the school system to blame but rather the tiger mums and dads attitude.

Some kids might need support if they are not self learners but in general I don't believe that the crazy hours of extra tuition make that much difference in the actual outcome (exams, PSLE results ). The top grade ones would be top grade ones with or without tuition. Small improvement maybe but someone whose not very academically gifted for the lack of better term, won't suddenly become A+ student in Singapore school system.

Some kids need a bit more kicking in the butt, and parents don't have time for it, so it's outsourced to tuition centers and tutors. That buys you good conscience that you've done everything you should as a good parent. It's obviously also peer pressure for both parents and kids, nobody wants to be the only one who doesn't have tuition.

True, tiger parents are a problem but honestly they are just a product of the local education system. The root of this over competitiveness is the system, not the parents, not the school, the system.

[Lisafuller]

Its most the parents who drive this to minimise any chance of failure. But I do think tuitions make no difference to really smart ones. I never took tuitions and I am so glad I did not .

“The number one reason people fail in life is because they listen to their friends, family and neighbors”

– Napoleon Hill

My daughter never did tuition, played most days while her classmates were ferried from tuition to enrichment to other classes. Many ended up burning out while she got into RGS, a school that ironically all of the other girls were aiming for but did not get in to.

[Lisafuller]

The saying is relevant… but things here are too far gone. Even teachers in local schools can’t be bothered to help their students and just tell them to go and ask their tutor! My daughter is studying right now while I type this. She has been studying since she got up this morning. She will continue studying non-stop except meals (sometimes even during) until at least 11pm tonight… and then tomorrow the same thing will repeat, weekdays or weekends, it makes no difference.

The local system is really too much. Not only do they over-learn, but they also have to memorize reams of details, and worst of all, the final test covers not just what they learned for the last chapter or few chapters, it’s the entire year of chapters! And get this, the tests are all essay questions which require you to regurgitate all of that detail you crammed in your head from the entire year. All this, just to pass with a decent grade, not flying colors.

Well put. Like I’ve said, the problem is with the system, and unfortunately the ones who suffer are the kids.